A SMALL Sarawak opposition party is questioning if Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had used the national reserves to fund the RM250 billion “people-centric” economic stimulus package.

Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party president Lina Soo said she had a few questions to ask Muhyiddin about the high-cost second stimulus plan he rolled out yesterday.

She also added hers to the chorus of voices saying that the prime minister ought to to have sought parliamentary approval for the plan.

Soo asked if the national coffers should prove insufficient for the stimulus package, would the prime minister, like the previous Pakatan Harapan prime minister, get national oil company Petronas “to cough up” the shortfall. 

“Stop treating Petronas like an ATM,” she said.

She said every time the federal government faces a financial crisis, it would turn to Petronas for bailouts, alluding to Petronas paying the federal government a special dividend of RM54 billion in 2019 for GST and income tax refunds.

Soo said Petronas should instead start thinking about paying the 5% petroleum product sales tax it owed Sarawak.

Putrajaya, she added, could always turn to government-linked companies like Khazanah Nasional Bhd and conglomerates like YTL, Berjaya and even former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohmad’s children’s companies to fund the stimulus package.

On the RM200 special allowance each for doctors, nurses, carers, cleaners, soldiers and police personnel for the next six months, Soo said the meagre amount does not reflect “the magnitude of their contribution as the frontliners who go to the battlefront everyday to keep our people and nation safe”.

She said they should instead be given RM1,000 each . – March 28, 2020.