IT is baffling why Putrajaya, even after a change of government, has yet to pay Sarawak its 50% share of the tourism tax implemented in 2017, said state Tourism Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.

“I know Sabah has been paid its share. We have not, and I don’t know why this is so,” he told reporters at the launch of the Sarawak Hornbill Tourism Awards in Kuching last night.

“Maybe it’s because we are an opposition-ruled state, that’s why we are treated this way.”

Another reason may be Lim Guan Eng, said Karim, describing the finance minister as someone “not very kind to Sarawak”.

He cited Lim’s objection to the state imposing a 5% sales tax on exported petroleum products beginning January 1 this year. Lim had said the tax was “unreasonable”.

“I believe the tourism minister (Mohamaddin Ketapi) is much more sympathetic (to Sarawak) than the finance minister,” said Karim.

During the state assembly sitting on the budget last November, he told reps that the tourism tax collection till September last year stood at RM4,653,302, meaning Sarawak should get more than RM2.32 million.

“We may have the biggest financial reserve in the whole country, you can combine the reserves of the other states, but they don’t even amount to half of what we’ve got.

“Even though the tourism tax collection is small, what is due to the state must be paid. A right is a right. It’s due to us.

“If they can pay other states their share of the tourism tax, then why not us?”

Sarawak had objected to the tourism tax, imposed by the then Barisan Nasional government on September 1, 2017, as the state was not consulted beforehand.

BN also stripped the state of its right to collect a similar tax under a local government by-law.

The introduction of the tax led to a public spat between Karim and then tourism and culture minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz. – January 4, 2019.