Fadillah Yusof of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) said it was ridiculous of Chong to claim that Sabah and Sarawak must also share the RM25.9 billion from non-state specific development allocation, saying the two states do not benefit from it.
“If he is not a snake oil salesman then he should not act like one to collude and conspire with the peninsular based federal government to justify their inability to meet their promises and deprive Sarawak and Sabah of their rightful and promised allocations in the 2020 Budget,” said the chief whip for GPS MPs.
Chong had defended the allocations for Sarawak, and rapped GPS MPs for criticising the budget, accusing them of remaining silent when the previous government had allocated less for Sarawak.
“They have no moral ground to criticise because when they were in power, they approved the past budgets which gave Sarawak much less,” Chong had said.
But Fadillah, the Petra Jaya MP questioned Chong’s claim that the allocation has achieved the 30% share of development budget that PH had promised for Sarawak.
He said it was wrong for Chong to say that the combined RM9.6 billion – RM4.5 billion for Sarawak and RM5.1 billion for Sabah – is equivalent to 31.9% of the total development budget of RM56 billion.
He said a 30% share of development expenditure for Sabah and Sarawak should have worked out to RM16.8 billion.
“Chong justifies this ridiculous calculation by claiming that Sabah and Sarawak must also bear a share of the RM25.9 billion development budget that is not directly allocated to Sabah and Sarawak as he claims that Sabah and Sarawak also benefits from this,” said Fadillah.
He said Sabah and Sarawak do not benefit from allocations to reduce toll rates in the peninsula, as well as the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), MRT2, LRT3 and other projects.
“As a son of Sarawak, Chong must stop colluding and conspiring with the Federal Government to help them justify why Sabah and Sarawak should not get what was promised as per the manifesto,” he added.
Apart from the RM16.8 billion which Fadillah said was the correct 30% share for Sabah and Sarawak, he also called for 20% of oil royalty and redistribution of 50% of tax revenues collected from Sabah and Sarawak.
“A promise is a promise. As a son of Borneo, Chong must fight for us. Not fight with the federal government against us.”