Willie against payment of oil royalty based on profit
KUCHING: Puncak Borneo MP Willie Mongin disagreed with the PH-helmed federal government’s plan to pay out oil royalty based on profit to oil producing states including Sarawak.
In his debate speech at the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday (July 26), Willie said he took this stand not because he wanted to ‘lawan tauke’ (rebelling against the boss) in Pakatan Harapan, but did it to ensure the rights of Sarawakians are protected.
He pointed out that as a representative for the voice of Puncak Borneo constituents in particular and Sarawak in general, he disagreed with payment of royalty based on profit because this contradicted with the pledges in the PH election manifesto for the 14th General election (GE14).
During his speech, Willie read out one of the pledges in the manifesto which stated “Pakatan Harapan government will increase petroleum royalty to Sabah and Sarawak, as well as other oil producing states to 20 per cent or equivalent value, as one of the fairer steps to distribute income from petroleum resources. This will allow the states to take on more development expenditure responsibilities at state-level.”
“I wish to inform my comrades (in PH) not to label me as ‘lawan tauke’. I am not doing this to ‘lawan tauke’. Let our differences of opinion become a way to build up our strength so that we can better safeguard the people in order to achieve a fairly prosperous Malaysia.
“I am not like those Barisan Nasional leaders who are afraid to voice out the concerns of their people in fear of their ‘ tauke’.
“I was elected by the people, I am serving the people and I will continue to be the voice of the people in the Dewan Rakyat,” he reiterated when debating the royal address at the Dewan Rakyat.
Willie nonetheless agreed with the statements made by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the royalties must be utilised by the state governments for development purpose only and not for political purposes.
He also concurred with Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali’s statement for the matter to be discussed further at the negotiation table in order to formulate a win-win situation based on Section 4 of the Petroleum Development Act ( PDA) 1974.
“We the Sarawakians and Sabahans, the people of Kelantan and Terengganu, are not requesting the moon and the sky. We only ask for what is due to us. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Therefore, I call for the mechanism of the royalty payment to be refined. And the payment of 20 per cent royalty must be based on revenue in line with the pledge in the PH election manifesto,” he said.
On another matter, Willie asked the government to explain alleged delays in granting of citizenship as requested by Sarawak natives, after claiming that foreigners appeared able to secure this quicker than undocumented Malaysians.
He questioned why the process is taking so long since there were 75,000 such applicants in Sarawak alone while some foreign nationals did not take long to be granted Malaysian citizenship.
Willie’s allegation also touched on those from the Ponogoro regency in East Java, in another veiled reference to former Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. This prompted Zahid to respond, after raising a point of order with the Dewan Speaker.
“I was born in Sungai Nipah Darat, Bagan Datuk, Perak,” Zahid said which drew laughter from lawmakers.