KUCHING: Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Assistant Minister Chong Chieng Jen today said that Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar was being hypocritical in his statement about reviewing the federal government’s special grant for Sarawak.
Chong was referring to an article in a local paper about Junaidi’s statement on reviewing the state’s special grant.
“Under the constitution, there is an item/article called ‘Special Grant’ under which the state receives a certain amount of direct grant from the federal government and the amount has to be revised every five years,” Chong said during a press conference today at DAP headquarters here.
Junaidi reportedly said that the last revision was done in 1969, to which Chong said that in 1974 there was supposed to have been a revision but nothing happened.
Chong said, “Only now that he is an opposition member in Parliament that he wants to bring up the lack of review of the special grant. Therefore, I say this is an act of hypocrisy…”
Chong pointed out that this hypocrisy was underlined by the fact that Junaidi was in the previous government for 28 years (1990 to 2018) during which the special was not reviewed at all.
There was also no increment of the special grant, and now that he is an opposition MP he starts talking about some so-called “injustice”.
Chong then revealed that negotiations are now carried out by the Federal Cabinet Committee on Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) to revise and review the special grant.
“The whole mechanism is being discussed and a decision on it will be announced very soon,” he said.
