Assistant minister backs Abdul Karim in tourism tax spat with Lim

Assistant Minister of Corporate Affairs Abdullah Saidol has defended Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah for raising the tourism tax issue which did not go down well with Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

“Our minister (Abdul Karim) was merely raising a valid concern about tourism tax owed to Sarawak. Shockingly, the response from the Minister of Finance sounds edgy or rather berserk,” he said in a press statement yesterday.

“It should be noted that it was an official written press statement from the Ministry of Finance and signed by the minister. It was bizarre to read a written ministerial response with such agitated tone.

“Which state in this country doesn’t secure federal loan?” asked Abdullah.

He added that for the record, in accordance with the terms of arrangement with the federal government, Sarawak did not default on any repayment.

Abdullah further said that as Finance Minister and former Penang Chief Minister, Lim should know better the financial arrangement between the state and federal governments.

Being a federal minister now, he said Lim should have shown his level- headed attitude by specifically addressing the issue raised instead of emotionally straying into other matters.

“The Finance Minister is also a member of the Federal Steering Committee on the Malaysia Agreement ( MA63) who questioned Sarawak’s constitutional right to impose five per cent sales tax on petroleum products.

“Pakatan Harapan ( PH) Sarawak representatives seem to be speechless when the Finance Minister said that imposing the five per cent tax was not appropriate,” he said.

He pointed out that Sarawakians still remember the pledge made by PH about giving 20 per cent oil royalty and returning 50 per cent of all tax collected by Sabah and Sarawak.

“At the same time, we Sarawakians either sympathise with the Works Minister ( Selangau MP Baru Bian) or are frustrated with the Finance Minister for not being able to provide funding either to maintain federal roads or build the desired bridges in Sarawak.”

As a result, Abdullah said the Sarawak government ended up taking the initiative to finance the construction of three bridges, while also reminding that the federal government until now had failed to commit seriously to its obligation to address the issue of dilapidated schools in Sarawak.

He said on Dec 31 last year, Lim was reported in a national daily as saying the country’s economic indicators were encouraging, pointing out that Malaysia’s foreign direct investment had increased by 250 per cent to RM49 billion.

“Ironically, in the same paper, it was reported by MIDF Research analyst that Malaysia saw a total foreign net outflow of RM11.65 billion during the same year and that the largest yearly foreign net outf low since 2015 saw RM19.49 billion of equities pulled out.

“The economic fate of this country can’t be handled by a minister ( Lim) who is still busy playing politics and coming up with all sorts of lame excuses,” Abdullah said.

He said Sarawak’s reserves are the ‘ healthiest and most prudently’ managed amongst the states in Malaysia.

“Perhaps, the Finance Minister should learn from Sarawak’s financial model on how to manage economic and fiscal policies. Please get to work and stop all the political nonsense.”