Manyin chided over ‘ignorant’ statement on National Budget 2019
KUCHING: Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen has chided Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin for his ‘ignorant’ statement on the National Budget 2019.
He said Manyin’s claim that Sarawak only received 1.4 per cent from the total budget only proved that the veteran politician did not understand what was tabled in the budget last Friday.
“Manyin in an interview with Astro Awani said Sarawak paid 15 per cent tax revenue but only got 1.4 per cent out of the total development expenditure allocation from the budget.
“I don’t know where he got this figure from but if he is basing this on the lies spread by Barisan Nasional ( BN) cyber troopers, which has been viralled in Whatsapp images claiming that Sarawak gets around RM4 billion, Peninsular Malaysia ( RM270 billion) and Sabah ( RM5 billion), then that is ridiculous,” he told a press conference after the 18th DAP Sarawak State Ordinary Convention was declared open by Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook at Crown Square here yesterday.
Chong, Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, pointed out that when Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng mentioned the RM4.346 billion allocation during the tabling of the budget, he was referring to the development expenditure comprising RM54.7 billion.
He said for the operating expenditure, a total of RM259.9 billion (82.6 per cent) was allocated, which would go towards paying the salaries of civil servants in federal government departments and agencies nationwide, such as teachers, doctors, nurses, police, army personnel and so on.
“TheRM54billionhetalkedabout is for development expenditure, and BN cyber troopers want to paint the false impression that Sarawak got RM4 billion out of RM270 billion, which is mala fide, bad intent and lies.”
Chong did however acknowledge that Sarawak and Sabah did not receive the 30 per cent allocation from the development expenditure, which was initially promised in the Pakatan Harapan ( PH) manifesto.
“It was promised that Sarawak and Sabah would get 30 per cent of the development fund but instead we got less than 20 per cent of the total development budget.
“This is a shortcoming in the budgetary allocation and PH has fallen short of what is promised.”
Nevertheless, he gave the assurance that PH Sarawak and Sabah would look into this, and it would be raised in the steering and technical committee meetings to be attended by representatives from the coalition of both states.