PUTRAJAYA has agreed to form a high-level committee to discuss state rights with Sarawak’s own high-level committee on the issue.

However, Prime Minister Najib Razak, in his address at the opening of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu’s (PBB) triennial delegates conference in Kuching today, did not say who would head Putrajaya’s committee.

Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg, after receiving support from the state legislative to form the high level committee last November, had said the state would prefer Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi or a person of his power and standing to head Putrajaya’s committee.

This move will effectively override a previously formed steering committee “to assist in the devolution of power” jointly chaired by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Nancy Shukri and Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.

Nancy was to have represented Sarawak while Anifah was to have represented Sabah.

Today, Najib assured the people that whatever rights were lost would be reinstated.

“If we have, by design or inadvertently, deprived the state of any of its rights, I am prepared to return them.

“We don’t have to take other people’s rights,” he said.

He said the return of such rights was a “BN fight”.

“We don’t just talk. We deliver.”

Najib, calling himself a “friend of Sarawak” while bashing his political nemesis Dr Mahathir Mohamad, questioned the opposition Pakatan Harapan’s promise to return the lost rights.

The promise is contained in the opposition coalition’s New Deal manifesto for Sabah and Sarawak.

Najib told PBB delegates that, during Dr Mahathir’s time, if there had been any talk about reviewing the MA63, those people would land in jail under the now repealed Internal Security Act (ISA).

“Do you want a return of that period?

“Can a leopard change its spot? Can a very old man change his spots?” – February 10, 2018.