Najib Razak treated Sarawak better in budget

Former prime minister Najib Razak came in for rare praise from an opposition activist today for the amount of budget funds provided for Sarawak when he was in power.

Sarawak activist Francis Paul Siah, expressing disappointment with the 2022 budget announced today, said the RM4.6 billion allocated for the state was “way out of line” in relation to Sarawak’s size as the largest territory in Malaysia.

The federal budget allocates RM5.2 billion in development expenditure for Sabah and RM4.6 billion for Sarawak.

Siah, who heads the Movement for Change Sarawak group, told FMT that 10% of the total RM332 billion would have been a reasonable allocation for Sarawak.

“I’m disappointed by both Perikatan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan, as far as the budget is concerned,” he said, referring to the previous governments by the two rival coalitions.

“Should I blame (the ruling) Gabungan Parti Sarawak? Yes and no. No, because when PH was in power, they were the same. They didn’t look after Sarawak either.

“We’ve been short-changed by both PH and PN. Barisan Nasional treated Sarawak much better, to be honest, in terms of development funds,” he said.

“Najib was the most generous guy,” despite his criminal conviction on charges of corruption and abuse of power, Siah said, pointing to the Najib government’s promise to build about 700 bridges in Sarawak, a type of infrastructure that was a necessity.

He said the number was significantly reduced when PH took over.

Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii said Sarawak deserved greater funding because of its larger geographical size, and especially since GPS was the “kingmaker” in the formation of the federal government.

Yii said the special grants for Sarawak were again kept at RM16 million, as in the previous year; by contrast, PH had doubled the amount of the grants when it was in power and had planned to increase the amount further to RM64 million in the next five years.

“However, in the 2021 and 2022 budgets the government reduced the amount back to RM16 million, the same figure as in 1969,” he told FMT.

Political analyst Oh Ei Sun, of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said he believed that Putrajaya did not feel any pressure to provide more funds as GPS was confident of a victory at the coming Sarawak state elections.

He added that there was little difference between the RM4.6 billion and RM5.2 billion allocated to Sarawak and Sabah respectively, since the latter was already lagging behind the former.

National Council of Professors fellow Jeniri Amir said Sarawakians would not be happy with the allocation despite it being unsurprising, adding that the budget in itself was one thing while the implementation of projects was another.

“On paper, it may be very good, but the execution of projects is the issue. There must be no wastages and leakages,” he said.

FMT