TAWAU: Parti Warisan Sabah is the “father of traitors” for agreeing to an interim settlement of a mere RM53 million per year – far lower than the RM125m demanded by the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) government from the Federal Government – pending final outcome on the 40 per cent special grant from taxes collected in Sabah the state is entitled to under the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah, Sarawak Affairs and Special Duties) Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali said the then Warisan State Government agreed to Federal’s offer in 2019 to revise the rate from RM26m to only RM53m starting 2020.
“If Warisan describes GRS as a ‘traitor’ for agreeing to RM125 million, then Warisan is the ‘father of traitors’ for agreeing to a lower amount.
“Warisan leaders and its machinery should not try to erase the record and the history of the decisions they made when in power,” said Armizan, who is also Deputy Secretary General of GRS.
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He urged the State Government to declassify under the Official Secrets Act 1972 the Warisan State Government’s letter to the Malaysian Ministry of Finance in 2019 on the matter so that the public would know of Warisan’s lies and distortions.
He noted that the Prime Minister has also announced that the total interim settlement rate of RM125 million per year (the result of GRS’s efforts in 2022) would be increased to RM300 million per year and increase every year.
“This means that the interim solution has a basis... We are not bound to a five-year period. We will continue to fight for the basic formula of 2/5 or 40 per cent as contained in Part 4 of the 10th Schedule of the Federal Constitution to negotiate with the Federal government to increase the interim rate for Sabah,” he said.
As a result of the interim settlement payment of RM125 million in 2022, Armizan said the GRS government would return it to the people of Sabah through the SMJ-friendly housing programme which is the first in the state’s history to build Sabah model PPRT houses.
“In 2022, as many as 1,500 SMJ-friendly houses for the poor would have been built and this year (2023) another 1,500 such houses will be built.
“Hajiji can give 3,000 SMJ-friendly houses within two years of ruling, while Warisan during its two years of its rule was just rhetoric,” he said.
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