KUCHING: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) has taken a firm position that claims suggesting the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) is silent on oil and gas matters amount to a narrow legal interpretation that avoids the agreement’s constitutional intent and consequences.
PRS Youth chief Christopher Gira Sambang said MA63 was never designed as a technical statute governing specific industries, but as a foundational agreement that determined the division of sovereignty, legislative authority and economic control within the Federation of Malaysia.
“Under the Constitution, land and natural resources fall under the State List. This was the position in 1963 and remains so today. For Sabah and Sarawak, these powers are further protected by Article 95D, which provides that federal laws on State List matters do not apply unless adopted by the State Legislative Assemblies,” he said in a statement.
Christopher also emphasised that oil and gas resources are situated beneath land, which has never been federal property.
He said if the federal government had original constitutional ownership over petroleum then there would have been no need for the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) 1974).
“The PDA exists precisely because ownership was not federal’s to begin with,” he said.
Christopher pointed out that this position is even clearer in Sarawak as the state had the Oil Mining Ordinance (OMO) 1958 before Malaysia was formed.
He said OMO 1958 vested full authority over petroleum in the state government and was never lawfully repealed.
“The establishment of Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (PETROS) and Sarawak’s gas laws are not acts of defiance but exercises powers that were never lawfully extinguished,” he said.
Christopher also said PRS questioned the federal government’s inconsistency, adding that the party stands firmly with the Sarawak government in defending the state’s rights under MA63.
“When MA63 is said to be ‘silent’, we are told silence means no entitlement. Yet when MA63 and the Constitution speak expressly, they are ignored as seen in Sabah’s 40 percent entitlement, which had to be enforced through the courts. This is not about opposing the Federation. It is about constitutional honesty.
“If the federal government wishes to justify its control over Sarawak’s oil and gas, it should do so openly — by admitting that such control rests on post-1963 legislation and political arrangements, not on MA63 or the Constitution as originally designed,” he added.
