A POLITICAL rights activist has urged the Sarawak government to hike the recently introduced 5% sales tax on exported petroleum products to 20% to offset the federal government’s failure to allocate funds.

State Reform Party Sarawak (Star) president Lina Soo said in view of Putrajaya’s failure to present allocations to fund repairs of dilapidated schools and construction and maintenance of federal roads, bridges and other infrastructure, “the answer lies in increasing the Sarawak petroleum sales tax to 20%”.

Soo’s push follows a proposal by Works Minister Baru Bian earlier today that the federal government could ask state governments to cover the cost of construction and maintenance of federal and rural roads using their own funds this year.

Baru, who said he would discuss the proposal with state governments soon, gave “tight national budget” as the reason behind asking states to fork out their own funds.

Federal cutbacks are nothing new in Sarawak. Last month, Baru said the federal government could not honour an agreement made by the previous Barisan Nasional administration to bear 50% of the cost of a bridge to be built across the Batang Lupar river.

He also said Putrajaya agreed with having the state government use its funds to build another two bridges – over the Rambungan river and Batang Igan – for which the federal government would later reimburse the costs of.

The bridges are key components of the state’s coastal road, an alternative to the Pan-Borneo Highway that stretches from Kuching to Miri.

Soo also questioned Putrajaya’s rationale of implementing a 38% petroleum income tax (PITA) when Sarawak was criticised for imposing the petroleum sales tax.

“There is no reason why Sarawak, as the landowner, is getting much less revenue from our oil and gas compared with the federal petroleum tax of 38%,” she said. – January 4, 2019.