In high spirits: Hajiji (foreground, centre) posing with other dignitaries and the recipients of the 35th Sabah Government Excellence Scholarship Award after the presentation ceremony in Kota Kinabalu.
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government will not bow down from pursuing its 40% revenue entitlement, despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s reiteration of the Federal Government’s “contributions” to the state.“Don’t worry, it is written in the Constitution.
We are in constant discussion with the Federal Government on the matter,” Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor told the media at the 35th Sabah Government Excellence Scholarship Award presentation here yesterday.
He said the Federal Government’s RM16bil allocation, as announced by Anwar three months ago during the Kaamatan Festival and again clarified during the Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Himpunan Perdana on Sunday, was not part of the 40% revenue entitlement demanded by the Sabah government.
“The RM16bil is the amount spent by the Federal Government in Sabah this year, and it has nothing to do with our 40%,” he added.
Hajiji, in earlier reports, said the state government would never give up the fundamental constitutional rights of the state in relation to the 40% nett revenue special grant under Articles 112C and 112D of the Federal Constitution.Describing it as a critical issue, he said the matter was now under the purview of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) technical committee chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof.
“We will continue to defend Sabah’s constitutional rights in relation to the existing revenue-sharing formula, and this must be respected by the Federal Government,” he said, adding that it would include the state’s claim for the “lost years”, where there had been no review conducted from 1974 until recently.
In July last year, Fadillah said that the formula of the claim for Sabah’s nett revenue or special grant is expected to be achieved within a year.
Pending the ongoing negotiations, the interim amounts have been increasing from RM125.6mil in 2022 and from the RM260mil announced in January 2023 to RM300mil in July 2023.
The negotiations also include backdated claims for the last 50 years until 1974, when no review of the special grant was carried out.
On May 29, the Sabah government took the initiative to calculate its 40% nett revenue entitlement to compensate for the delayed response from the Federal Government.
On another matter, Hajiji stressed that the state government does not recognise the latest “custodial rights” claim by a southern Philippine group over Sabah.
“It is clear that Sabah is part of Malaysia and has gained independence through the country. We strongly deny the claim,” he said.
Hajiji welcomed the Prime Minister’s assurance that he would protect Sabah from any force that would challenge the state and country’s sovereignty.
“We live and die with Malaysia,” he added.
Sabahans, he said, had chosen to jointly form the Federation of Malaysia through the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
“Therefore, any external claim on the state of Sabah will not be recognised by the state government or the people,” he said.
The new claim came after similar efforts by the self-proclaimed heirs of the defunct Sulu Sultanate failed after the Madrid Criminal Court found arbitrator Dr Gonzalo Stampa, who ordered Malaysia to pay the heirs US$14.92bil (RM69.9bil) in “cession money”, guilty of contempt of court.
