Sapp: Make KL keep RM1bil promise
Malaysiakini
The Putrajaya administration has yet to make good a promise made last May to disburse RM1 billion as a special federal grant to Sabah.
And the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp), which pulled out of the Barisan Nasional (BN) stable last September, is exerting pressure on the state cabinet to demand that outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi fulfils his pledge before leaving office in March.
Sapp chief Yong Teck Lee (left) said in a statement to Malaysiakini today that senior Sabah leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who is PBS president, has confirmed that the grant has not been received to date.
“If this BN state government fails to secure the missing RM1 billion, then it would be a dereliction of duty on the part of the BN and its leaders,” Yong said.
It would also be “another big lie perpetrated against the people of Sabah”, he said, echoing Kalabakan MP Ghapur Salleh’s warning that no number of calls by PBS leaders to rebrand BN would prevent the collapse of the state government.
“It is amazing how the PBS president has so casually tried to explain away the missing special grant by saying that federal grants are disbursed from time to time and that there is no problem,” said Yong, a former chief minister of the state.
Sapp has been highlighting the issue because allocation was not made for the special grant in the July 2008 federal supplementary budget; in the 2009 national budget tabled last September 2008; or in the RM7 billion stimulus package tabled last November.
Failure to leverage
Yong further said the state government and federal ministers from Sabah should have made use of Sapp’s voice to press the federal government to allocate the money, particularly after the general election results last March.
“Perhaps, then the Sabah Ministry of Rural Development would have got at least RM300 million for rural projects,” he said.
“The PBS deputy president-cum-federal minister in the Prime Minister’s Department would not then have had to resort to begging the National Security Council for RM1.1 million to rebuild three Kota Marudu suspension bridges which were washed away more than a year ago.”
Yong upped the ante by referring to the Kuala Terengganu by-election, in which BN lost to PAS last Saturday.
“We hope it will not take a by-election in Pensiangan to make BN government fulfill the RM1 billion promise,” he said.
“The people of Sabah will remember that the BN federal government expended billions of ringgit in petroleum royalties, grants and other benefits (in the period) leading up to the Kuala Terengganu by-election.”
On Sept 8 last year, the Kota Kinabalu High Court nullified the Pensiangan election result, which had been won uncontested by BN’s Joseph Kurup on nomination day. An appeal against the decision is pending before the Federal Court.
