SIBU: Senator Robert Lau Hui Yew welcomes the support from former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for Legal Affairs and Judicial Reform, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, for a royal commission on how the wealth from Petronas was used and how to improve the management, transparency and fairness in the resources distribution with the states.
However, Lau pointed out, it is a conditional support clothed with a veiled attack on the way Sarawak was governed with the suggestion of expanding the proposed Royal Commission’s scope to include how power and the wealth of Sarawak was used.
“Why Sarawak only; why not start from the very top where wastages and scandals are plenty? This is an attempt to distract from the real issue. The real issue at hand for the nation is how do we move forward in transforming our economy and not be over reliance on natural resources, especially those extracted from Sarawak and Sabah, to safe the country’s dire financial position.
“The nation faces a huge public debt of more than RM1.3 trillion and an annual budget deficit, adding nearly RM100 billion yearly to this debt until we can achieve balanced budget. The scary part is there is no clear view of when the nation will achieve a balance budget again.
“While I do not condone any abuse of power for self-enrichment by those in power at any level, we cannot close our eyes to the dissatisfaction and unfairness felt by the people of Sarawak and Sabah towards the issue of her natural resources being taken by the federal government in underhanded method, including misusing the emergency powers given to quell race riots in Kuala Lumpur by issuing executive orders to alter the shorelines of Sarawak and Sabah so as to get hold of the oil and gas wealth,” he stated in a press statement on Friday (Aug 29).
According to Lau, who is a lawyer by profession, the reason for the formation of the federation of Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963 was to help fast track the development of Sarawak and Sabah; not as a “resources grab”.
He said it should not be like what happened to Malaya by the British during the British colonial rule by taking all the tin and rubber wealth to support their economy and that of the British Empire.
He referred and quoted from a book on this issue called “British Malaya – An economic analysis published in 1955 and republished locally in 1982, stating, “The consensus of opinion was that Britain cannot give up Malaya because of its tremendous economic importance to the Empire in general and to Britain in particular.
“In 1951, the rubber export from Malaya to the United States was estimated at 370,000 tons, valued at about USD405 million, while the total export from Britain herself to the United States was valued at less than USD400 million. Malaya is Britain’s “dollar arsenal” and she will hold it as long as it is economically profitable to her. If one day Malaya can no longer serve such a purpose, probably Britain will be more willing to let it free.”
Lau asserted that Sarawak was fortunate not to suffer the fate of Malaya where almost all her wealth in tin and rubber, the two pillars of Malaya economy, were taken to support the British economy and her empire.
The British government, he said, had only 16 years to rule Sarawak (from 1946 until 16 Sept 16, 1963), hence she did not have the time to take the wealth away from Sarawak.
“It does not serve any purpose to point fingers or to distract from the real issues at hand. The real challenge is whether the nation economy can transform, to have a paradigm shift, so that it does not need to rely on natural resources from the states to drive it.
“Let the states use their own natural resources found on the land for their own development,” Lau concluded.
