Motion to amend PDA akin to recognition – SUPP Youth

KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party ( SUPP) Youth Central chairman Michael Tiang says that Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen’s intention to table a motion in Parliament to amend the Petroleum Development Act 1974 ( PDA) is in fact tantamount to recognising PDA and its legal standing in the state.

In a statement yesterday, Tiang responded to Chong’s calling for Barisan Nasional ( BN) MPs to support his motion by questioning why it took so long for DAP to understand that Sarawak, in fact, already owns all petroleum resources both onshore and offshore, in the Continental Shelf within the boundaries, as stipulated under the Sarawak (Alteration of Boundaries) by the Queen in Council in 1954.

“That was long before Malaysia Day 1963 as in 1958, our Council Negeri even passed the Oil Mining Ordinance to regulate the laws relating to oil mining in Sarawak and its Continental Shelf. Our rights in our lands and continental shelf are also clearly enshrined in the Federal Constitution Article 2.

“Since 2011, with the annulment of the Proclamation of Emergency 1969, our Sarawak Government is now constitutionally entitled to exercise its original rights over onshore and offshore mining of oil and gas according to our Oil Mining Ordinance 1958.

“For a Sarawakian to table an amendment to the PDA in Parliament is in fact throwing away our original rights under the 1958 Ordinance by recognising the PDA to supersede our own rights,” he said.

Apart from that, Tiang also questioned how can one Sarawakian MP ask the other 25 MPs from Sarawak to join his attempt to recognise PDA and to throw away the state’s original rights.

Tiang went on to say that he hoped Sarawakians will support the state government’s strategy to gradually take control of oil and gas rights so as not to disrupt the present system into dysfunction, notwithstanding the conviction that the PDA and the Territorial Seas Act 2012 are unconstitutional.