SARAWAK should be happy with the latest budget allocation, as it was happy with much lower funds given by previous Barisan Nasional government, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

“They will always say that they are not satisfied even when we give 100% special grant.

“Sarawak is the second highest state after Sabah to get huge budget allocation from the federal government. I hope they can reconsider because we give them more than what they have gotten from previous administration.

“They weren’t complaining last time,” said Lim after a briefing with Pakatan Harapan MPs.

Lim during the Budget 2020 tabling had announced that Sabah and Sarawak would receive RM5.2 billion and RM4.4 billion respectively in development expenditure next year.

This comes to about 17% of the development expenditure of RM56 billion.

Sarawak’s political leaders have slammed the allocation under Budget 2020 as insufficient for its development needs and broke PH’s election promise to allocate 30% of the development expenditure to the Bornean states.

Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president Dr Sim Kui Hian yesterday said the budget was too “Malaya-centric”.

“Putrajaya, throughout these years, had earned RM660 billion from our oil and gas, since the development of Petronas in 1974,” said the Batu Kawa assemblyman.

Sarawak Association for Peoples’ Aspirations (Sapa) president Dominique Ng was also reported as saying that the amount given to Sarawak as “peanuts” compared to the huge income Putrajaya earned from the state’s oil and gas.

“Our resources are taken willy-nilly and we are given only a pittance in return even when they (federal government) know how backward in development we are,” he was reported as saying. – October 12, 2019.