IN another show of independence, Sarawak today announced that it was working to remove tourism from the federal list under the 9th schedule of the federal constitution.

The announcement comes in the heels of the state government’s earlier appointment of a chairman and board for the newly formed state oil firm Petros. 

Similarly, Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg said in June that Sarawak’s own development bank will be operational from January 2018 onwards. The Development Bank of Sarawak’s (DBOS) board of governors was named recently.

With a new development bank and an oil firm under its control, Sarawak today demanded to have more say in tourism matters.

State Tourism Minister Abdul Karim Hamzah said tourism matters in Sarawak was never at any time under the right or purview of the federal government, adding that talks were already under way with Putrajaya on this matter.

“Since tourism was neither on the federal nor state list after the Malaysia Agreement 1963 was signed, it should automatically fall into the residual list.

“Ask any constitutional lawyer. They will tell you that if the matter is not in the federal or state list, it should be placed in the residual list.

“Under the federal constitution, matters under the residual list are matters under the purview of the state,” Karim said after opening the pre-Asia-Pacific orchid conference in the state capital today. 

He said this was why Sarawak had always looked at tourism as a state matter, adding that it was for this reason the state had a tourism minister for more than a decade before Putrajaya appointed its tourism minister.

“We had a tourism minister from 1985. The federal government only had theirs from 1994,” said Karim, adding that it was Putrajaya which had “quietly inserted” tourism into the federal list.

Since Sarawak and Sabah often viewed tourism as a state matter, the two Bornean states have had their own tourism boards to handle promotions, he said.

“Do you see that in other states in Malaya? So, the question now is whether tourism is the right of the federal or state government.

“Not just tourism. There are many things the state feels have been eroded from our rights through the years from 1963 until today.

“We are serious about removing it from the federal list.”

He also said Sarawak and Sabah are working closely on removing tourism from the federal list.

“We formed Malaysia together. How we feel is how Sabah feels.”

Karim’s claim that Putrajaya has no respect for the rights of Sarawak when it proposed the tourism tax led to a very public confrontation with Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz.

Last week, Karim asked Nazri to explain the mechanism of the tourism tax to the Sarawak and Sabah governments after he reneged on an agreement to share the tax collection three ways among Sabah, Sarawak and the peninsula.

Nazri last month said he planned to return RM1 for every RM10 in tax per room per night collected to Sabah and Sarawak. – August 25, 2017.