SARAWAK DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen has put a new twist to the RM1 billion the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government advanced to the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government in 2019 for the repair of dilapidated schools in the state.

The GPS government had deemed the arrangement a “contra loan” but Chong, ratcheting his spat with the state’s ruling coalition, has claimed the RM1 billion was “a direct grant” by the PH government to the state government.

He added that it was given as “a gesture of goodwill” by the PH government to quickly repair dilapidated schools in the state.

Premier – then chief minister – Abang Johari Openg in February 2019 agreed to advance RM1 billion to Putrajaya on the understanding that the money would be used to repair the thousands of shabby schools in the state.

This came after a courtesy call by the then minister of education Maszlee Malik.

Chong’s narrative of the arrangement is that the RM1 billion was a repayment of the loan, which the state took from the federal government.

The repayment, as of December 2018, stood at RM2.5 billion. The then finance minister Lim Guan Eng had demanded Sarawak settle the loan before he decided on funds for school repairs.

Chong said in normal financial procedure, repayment of loan goes to the Consolidated Fund and whatever money that goes in will be used as the government deems fit “according to the budgetary process”.

Therefore, returning all the RM1 billion to Sarawak for dilapidated school repairs was against the budgetary process.

“It has never happened in the nation’s history that the entire loan repayment amount be allocated back to the borrower state,” he said.

Chong, who most likely will be defending his Stampin parliamentary seat in the coming general election, said this was the practice when Barisan Nasional was in power and is still the practice now.

Therefore, he said, the RM1 billion that had been advanced was allocated back as a “direct grant”.

He said Lim, his DAP chairman, even “went out of his way” to ensure that the whole repayment goes back to Sarawak.

In one of his statements, Chong said that when Lim offered to the state government that the full RM1 billion repayment be allocated back to the state as a direct grant for the repair and upgrade of dilapidated schools, it was “an extraordinary offer giving special preferential treatment” to the state.

He added that anyone who understands the workings of government financing process and procedure would appreciate such preferential treatment.

Lukanisman Awang Sauni, the deputy youth chief of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu, the lead party in the state ruling coalition, slammed Chong over what the former deemed an attempt at “whitewashing, to absolve Lim and the then PH federal government of their own shortcomings in assisting the children of Sarawak”.

The Sibuti incumbent, echoing the GPS narrative, said that when the state government decided to advance RM1 billion of its own funds to the federal government, it was to expedite repair of dilapidated schools in the state, “as we were led to believe that Putrajaya was financially stricken”.

Lukanisman said what had transpired was a “bullying by the PH government and Lim” and said Chong would bend over backwards “to their political masters in Malaya”.

Chief political secretary to the premier and Tupong assemblyman, Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman said Chong’s explanation of the federal government having to cut red tape and give Sarawak “preferential treatment” to channel the RM1 billion as direct grant is itself an attempt at fact-twisting.

“That was not preferential treatment. It was preferentially harsh treatment,” he said.

“The PH federal government there and then could have coughed up the funds by themselves to repair the dilapidated schools had they chosen to. But they did not.

“They preferred to put us on a never-ending charade where the children in Sarawak are held to ransom over what can only be described as petty politicking.” – October 25, 2022.