No need to argue on the recent com­mer­cial set­tle­ment agree­ment be­tween the state govern­ment and Petro­liam Na­sional Ber­had (Petronas)

We fully support our Right Honourable Chief Minister's #AbangJo who recently said only time will tell whether Sarawak and its people have been short­changed in the com­mer­cial set­tle­ment agree­ment be­tween the state govern­ment and Petro­liam Na­sional Ber­had (Petronas).

He was right when having said there was no need to ar­gue with cer­tain quar­ters who thought oth­er­wise.

“Time will tell whether it (agree­ment) is cor­rect or not. We don’t have to ar­gue be­cause we have the rights al­ready,” he told our media friends when met after of­fi­ci­at­ing the 10th an­niver­sary of Ma’had Tah­fiz Tun Ab­dul Rah­man Ya’kub (Mat­tary) at Ma­jma Tuanku Ab­dul Halim Muadzam Shah Hall held on 10 December.

Our chief min­is­ter was asked to com­ment on the recent state­ment made by Batu Lin­tang's State As­sem­bly­man YB See Chee How who be­lieved that we had been short­changed in the com­mer­cial set­tle­ment agree­ment with Petronas.

YB See Chee How is a member of Parti Sarawak Ber­satu (PSB) pres­i­den­tial coun­cil mem­ber and had said that what was most dis­ap­point­ing and un­ac­cept­able to Sarawakians was the fact that the state govern­ment had con­ceded ground on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity and le­gal­ity of the ap­pli­ca­tion of the pro­vi­sions in the Pe­tro­leum De­vel­op­ment Act (PDA) 1974.

The Sarawak govern­ment and Petronas had recently signed the com­mer­cial set­tle­ment agree­ment on is­sues in­volv­ing the state’s sales tax and oil min­ing laws which would es­tab­lish a frame­work be­tween the na­tional oil com­pany and the state govern­ment that would see Sarawak more ac­tively in­volved in its on­shore oil and gas ac­tiv­i­ties through Pe­tro­leum Sarawak Bhd (Pet­ros).

Both Petronas and the state govern­ment agreed to es­tab­lish a con­sul­ta­tive frame­work to en­hance col­lab­o­ra­tion through a struc­tured and for­malised av­enue com­pris­ing a joint co­or­di­na­tion com­mit­tee and an an­nual strate­gic di­a­logue. Th­ese plat­forms will be co-chaired by Abang Jo­hari and Petronas chair­man Tan Sri Ah­mad Nizam Salleh.