New Rm125mil Special Grant To Sabah Still Too Small

---

 
Jeffrey Kitingan said the new amount should not jeopardise efforts to restore a 40% formula for federal revenue collected in Sabah. (Bernama pic)KOTA KINABALU: Sabah deserves more than the new RM125.6 million special grant to be paid by the federal government, says Jeffrey Kitingan, pro-tem deputy chairman of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS).
While he agreed that the new sum was a significant improvement from the previous RM26.7 million allocation, Kitingan said the amount received by Sabah was still too small.
He said the new amount should not be regarded as a replacement for the constitutional special grant due to Sabah, which is supposed to be 40% of the net revenue derived by the federal government in the state.
“This is our right under the Federal Constitution,” Kitingan, who is also deputy chief minister, said in a statement here today.
The new grant, more than four times the current payment of RM26.7 million, “should not jeopardise our efforts to assert our constitutional rights”, he said.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced yesterday that Putrajaya would increase its annual payment to Sabah to RM125.6 million this year.
He also said the amount would increase every year from 2023 to 2026 according to a rate agreed by Putrajaya and the Sabah government.
He added that the decision came after the federal and state governments reached consensus on a review of the special grant to Sabah.
Kitingan said the federal grant had remained stagnant at RM26.7 million for the past 49 years because of a failure to conduct a review of the grant, a constitutional requirement.
Had the reviews been held every five years, he said Sabah could be receiving some RM900 million now if a 7.5% yearly increment adopted in the first review had been applied.
Chief minister Hajiji Noor, who is GRS pro-tem chairman, said the state would not drop its pursuit of a return to the 40% formula. - FMT

---