KUCHING: The oil and gas that comes from Sarawak, and all ownership and economic rights over its natural resources, must belong to Sarawak and her citizens.
State Reform Party Sarawak (STAR) president Lina Soo reminded that despite oil and gas found in Sarawak, the state only gets five per cent cash payment, while the federal government gets oil royalty, petroleum income tax, taxes and dividends, allegedly reaping 92 per cent of oil and gas revenues.
She said this in response to a statement by Sarawak Petroleum Group (SPG) who said that Putrajaya and Petronas were the reason why Sarawak was not getting a fair deal.
Soo alleged that at least half of Petronas’ revenue since 1976 came from Sarawak’s oil and gas.
“Despite all this, Petronas has refused to give royalty and pay up the five per cent State Sales Tax (SST) on petroleum,” she said.
She said instead Petronas had just purchased 50 per cent stake in another offshore venture located in the deep waters off Brazil.
“Petronas has deep pockets to experiment overseas but conveniently forgets the welfare of Sarawak.
“While Sarawak is wallowing in poverty, Petronas is gambling the profits generated from our petroleum in overseas forays which have led to heavy losses written off,” she said.
She said for the federal government to tell Sarawak to ‘buy-back’ equity in Petronas was worse than rubbing salt into a festering wound.
“Not to mention it is a trap for us to validate the unconstitutional Petroleum Development Act (PDA) which is not applicable to Sarawak,” she pointed out.
Soo agreed with SPG’s claim that Sarawakians could do much better at managing Sarawak’s own resources than Petronas.
“Sarawak has many talents who are holding corporate and high level positions in multinationals such as Shell, not just in Malaysia but also all over the world.
“Should national duty be called upon Sarawakian professionals to return to Sarawak to develop our petroleum industry, I believe they will be ever ready to serve our country,” she stressed.
