KOTA KINABALU: Sabah hopes to get a clear answer on the long-awaited 40% net revenue owed to the state by June 30.
Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said this date was proposed following the last Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) Implementation Action Council technical committee meeting held on March 13.
He said Sabah was tired of waiting for the calculation, formula and amount to be finalised by the Federal Government.
After asking 13 times without an answer, he said Sabah had decided to take the initiative to calculate the amount owed.
“I am confident we will get somewhere and this matter will be resolved. This is what the people have been waiting for,” he said here on Friday (March 21), adding that Sabahans have been deprived of their financial rights for 60 years.
“We have gathered and keyed in data... based on what we feel is correct and hopefully the Federal Government can counter our numbers on June 30.
"If there is still no decision by then, we can (appoint) an independent assessor,” Kitingan said, adding that the outstanding amount could be used for the state's development and sort out its infrastructure issues.
He said Sabah did not want to keep getting interim payments without any final decision on the net revenue.
“Imagine what RM10bil or RM20bil can do. For this year we received around RM6.7bil in development funds but these are mainly federally-funded projects (and the allocation is) not fully utilised every year,” he added.
As such, it was inaccurate to say that Sabah was getting the biggest portion of development funds because any unused amount would be returned to Putrajaya, he said.
Kitingan said other matters such as the 10% export duty on petroleum instead of royalty and 10% import duty on petroleum products can be pursued later, as long as the 40% net revenue issue is settled first.
