Chong questions consistency of Oil Mining (Amendment) Bill

KOTA Sentosa (PH-DAP) assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen has questioned the consistency of the Oil Mining (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and wants the conflict of law issue be resolved.

He said by looking into the Bill, there are likely to be inconsistency in terms of regulation that will be formulated by Sarawak against the existing regulation that was regulated by Petronas pursuant to the Petroluem Development Act (PDA) 1974.

He said in light of that inconsistency to the amended Oil Mining Ordinance (OMO), the PDA would prevail over it.

“By tabling and passing the Bill today in this august House, let the people of Sarawak not be deceived that we are claiming ownership of the oil and gas resources.

“At the most, what you are going to claim is the power to regulate the industry while ownership still remains in Petronas.

“The minister can confirm that as well, you (members of the ruling coalition) are not claiming the ownership of oil and gas on our land from the federal government,” he said when debating the proposed Bill.

Chong, who is also Sarawak Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman, said the proposed amendment, which is supposed to regulate the oil and gas industry, the exploration and mining of oil in Sarawak would run to the contrary of the word exclusive rights that appears in the PDA 1974. He told the august House that Article 75 of the Federal Constitution, provides that ‘If any state law is inconsistent with the federal law, the federal law shall prevail and the state law shall be void’.

“Now, we have a federal law which confers Petronas the exclusive rights to manage the oil and gas and then you have the state law trying to regulate it.