Don’t Just Ask for Royalty But Seek to Restore Rights–Dr. Jeffrey

Kota Kinabalu:    “The Sabah Government should take official steps to restore its oil rights rather than begging the Federal Government to increase the 5% so called “royalty” payment”, said Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, Sabah STAR Chief, when commenting on the “Oil Royalty” issue raised by BN component Youth Chiefs recently.

The joint suggestion by the Youth Chiefs of PBS, UPKO and PBRS to increase oil royalty to 10% by transferring the Federal component of 5% received favourable support from Datuk Salleh Said Keruak, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly two days ago.It also received cautionary support from Sabah Federal Minister, (Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, which he said must be viewed from the overall development allocation.

Dr Jeffrey said that these leaders are missing the point by looking at the oil royalty from a narrow perspective.

Don’t beg for an increase in oil royalty.  It is our rights, it is from our oil.  Seek to restore our oil ownership rights instead, he said.

How do you do that? 

By invalidating the Petroleum “Surrender” Agreement signed by Harris Salleh and witnessed by Pairin on 14th July 1976.  This so called “Petroleum Surrender Agreement” (PSA) was signed on behalf of Sabah under questionable circumstances and was never validated by the Legislative Assembly, Jeffrey elaborated.

In that Agreement they (Harris and Pairin) were asked to agree to accept the 5% cash payment under Article 4 of the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) 1974 and to WAIVE the State’s rights to collect or impose royalty under the Sabah Land Ordinance.

“The Sabah Government would have been entitled to collect 12.5% in oil royalties in addition to the 5% cash payments as oil royalty payments, that had already been imposed in earlier Petroleum Agreements and licences issued by the Sabah Government to oil prospecting companies before 1976” said Dr Jeffrey.

Therefore, the Sabah Government should take that necessary step (to correct the situation) if the BN leaders are sincere.

The DAP and PAKATAN leaders can equally table a motion in Parliament to invalidate or revoke and abolish the Petroleum Development Act as unconstitutional if they are genuinely concerned.

If these Sabah BN and Pakatan leaders are truly Sabahans at heart, they should even ask for shareholdings, not less than 50% to be given to Sabah and Sarawak, in Petronas.    Petronas would not be what it is today, a Fortune 500 company, without the oil and gas revenues from Sabah and Sarawak.  In fact, oil producing States can even own 100% of Petronas and the federal government can be given one (1) “Golden share” as what is done for many other companies linked to the federal government and more recently in the proposed Bernas deal.

Without such oil revenues, Petronas would also not be able to build the Petronas Twin Towers, once the tallest building in the world and its wholly owned company, Putrajaya Holdings Sdn. Bhd., would not be able to finance the construction and completion of the federal administrative capital in Putrajaya.

The time cannot be more opportune than now to restore the oil ownership rights and to correct the past mistakes of past leaders and the injustice imposed on the people of Sabah and Sarawak. The only issue is whether the federal government and the Sabah BN and Pakatan leaders from Sabah are sincere and genuine and prepared to press for Sabah.