Sarawak can go it alone – Dixon Fong
I read Brewin Edward Emprang’s article and found it mind-blowing. The author might have skipped some fundamentals while expressing his views. I am a Sarawakian and thus, I hope I am not wasting your time here.
The author mentioned that Petronas does not have the equipment and expertise needed for oil exploration and excavation. I beg to defer on this statement. Petronas, one of the Fortune 500 companies, has the talents required to be profitable on an annual basis. It is wrong to assume that Petronas, a national Oil Company (NOC) with the ownership of the hydrocarbon deposits in Malaysia, has done nothing to be profitable for the past 40 years.Petronas, through Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) has trained world-class engineers in the oil and gas industry to such an extent that our home-bred talents are head-hunted and sourced overseas.
The author backed his argument with a simple calculation and claimed that there is nothing left for Petronas if the royalty is to be increased to 20% as suggested by Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem. He implies that there is an obligation for Sarawak to ensure that Petronas is profitable. The Sarawak government and Petronas are two different entities with mutually exclusive interests. How can one assume the responsibilities and interests of the other? Thus, to question what is left for Petronas when the chief minister calls for the increase of royalty is technically incomprehensible.
To add to the context, the 5% royalty is a rip off for Sarawakians. My analogy is if you inherited RM100 gold from your parents, would it be reasonable for me to take away 95% of it from you? On top of that, the author pointed out that Sarawakians who support the secession of Sarawak from the federation have overlooked the fact that the federal government spends more than what it collects from Sarawak.
The author went the extra mile to compare Sarawak with Selangor in terms of direct and indirect taxes collected and funds allocated by the federation. This is my view. Sarawak has been producing oil a few decades prior to the establishment of the federation of Malaysia. Undeniably, Sarawak and Sabah have been fuelling the growth of states in Malaya from the start. In exchange, the federation did not give the necessary attention and development to Sarawak and Sabah. Sarawak was once one of the richest members in the federation and is now one of the poorest states in the federation.
Therefore, comparing the revenues collected Sarawak with Selangor is meaningless. As an electrical and computer systems engineering student from Kuching, I am not trained technically to explore the potential economical and geopolitical impact should Sarawak secede from the federation. Nevertheless, I do can assure the author that Sarawak has the required talents and capacities to finance its own growth and development even from the start. While I breathe, I hope (Dum Spiro Spero). – May 1, 2014.
* Dixon Fong reads The Malaysian Insider.* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.-
Credited to: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/sarawak-can-go-it-alone-dixon-fong#sthash.BC7BquRl.dpuf
