KUCHING: The main focus of the Sarawak government now should be to ensure the collection of the five per cent sales tax on petroleum products is duly received.
Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring) Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali said if the federal government could not raised the oil royalty of 20 per cent, then the focus now is for the state to ask to be paid the five per cent sales tax on petroleum products.
“There should also be a commercial arrangement with Petronas. I think that is the way to go,” she told reporters when met after the launch of the state-level Women’s Day Celebration 2019 at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) yesterday.
She said the state must get back at least some of the huge profit generated by Petronas.
“Yes, our only concern is the oil and minerals extracted from our land within our state boundaries. We want to get a little bit of that back to develop our state further especially the basic infrastructure in the rural areas,” she said.
Asked how Petronas is responding, Hasidah said the negotiations are going well.
“We will wait and see. We give them time first. We will cross the bridge when we get there.
“And we also want to focus on the every-five-year financial review under Article 112D…which refers to a special grant to be reviewed,” she said, adding the last review was in 1969.
