PAKATAN Harapan has failed to keep its election promise to allocate 30% of the federal budget to Sabah and Sarawak by allocation only 17.1% of development funds to the two states, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) chief whip Fadillah Yusof said.

“What happened to the promise to allocate 30%?” the Petrajaya MP said of Budget 2020 which was tabled by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday.

Only RM4.4 billion has been allocated to Sarawak and RM5.2 billion to Sabah. 

The total of RM9.6 billion is only 17.1% of the total development fund, Fadillah said.

Promise 42 in the PH election manifesto states that “up to 30% of the budget allocation for each year will be devoted to Sabah and Sarawak”.

Fadillah, who was works minister in the ousted Barisan Nasional government, also questioned why Sarawak, which had a land area almost equal to the peninsula, received a smaller allocation than Sabah.

He said with this kind of approach, Putrajaya would never be able to bridge the development gap between the two states in Borneo and the peninsula.

Fadillah also said he was disappointed the budget did not address the promise by PH Sarawak to return 50% of federal taxes collected in the state.

“There was absolutely no mention of it,” said Fadillah, describing the budget has having failed to fulfil any of the promises the coalition made to Sarawakians during elections last year.

Sarawak PAS youth chief Zharudin Narudin said it was no surprise that PH’s promises to Sarawak were ignored in Budget 2020. 

“This budget just amplified Pakatan Harapan’s dismal failure to make good on its promises in its general election manifesto.”

Voon Lee Shan, president of Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK), said the budget “insulted the intelligence” of Sarawakians.

He said Putrajaya told people not to be dependent on government subsidies, yet the federal government was “dependent on the subsides and hospitality of people of Sabah and Sarawak” which were rich in oil and gas resources.

Voon, a former DAP lawmaker, said the peninsula had a “subsidy mentality”.

To show that it understood the “equal justice, equal opportunity, equal partnership and equal status” that it preached about, Voon said Putrajaya should equally divide budget allocations three ways next year.

“Have all the allocations of next year’s budget be divided into three equal parts between Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak,” he said. – October 12, 2019.