KOTA KINABALU: Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and other Barisan Nasional (BN) components in Sabah as well as the State Government as a whole should examine carefully relevant facts and data to determine if increasing the State’s oil royalty to 20 per cent is really undoable as claimed by Petronas.
PBS information chief Datuk Jahid Jahim said Sabah should be given full access to all the information needed that would allow it to conduct an in-depth analysis and explain the matter accurately and objectively to the people.
In this regards, he said Petronas and the Federal Government must be seen as fully transparent and cooperative in making crucial data and figures available to related parties in the State.
“We are open to and welcome any explanation and suggestion given on the issue, however it must be stressed that Sabah must be given its rights through a win-win solution. Facts and figures need to be analyzed thoroughly and openly so that the people of Sabah themselves can have an informed opinion and conclusion on the matter,” he said.
He opined that only total transparency would allow Sabahans to understand and appreciate the reasons preventing Petronas from fulfilling the royalty hike they demanded and consequently accept whatever fair solutions to be offered by the Federal.
The people of Sabah and Sarawak need to see that everything has been done to scrutinize all related facts before any decision to accept or reject their call for an increase is made, he added.
“The people of Sabah and Sarawak, who have long demanded the royalty to be reviewed from the current five to 20 per cent, simply wanted their respective governments to claim and acquired what is fair in regard to the precious resources extracted from their states,” said Jahid.
Petronas vice president of Malaysia Petroleum Management, Adif Zulkifli, disclosed on Wednesday that an increase in oil royalty to the state and federal governments would have an adverse impact on the project viability and the industry at large.
He said that if the oil royalty cash payments were to be increased to 20 per cent for Sabah, some projects undertaken by Petronas may be in jeopardy.
The immediate impact would be projects being dropped by foreign investors, investors’ confidence will be eroded and the country’s energy security will be at risk, he said.
Adif said the mid-term impact would be contract and opportunity losses for supporting industry, no further exploration activities and retrenchment.
“In the long run, we would experience shrinkage in Malaysia’s oil and gas industry, lower government revenue and reduction in the GDP as well as GNI,” he stressed.
“We may have problems sustaining the cash payments to Sabah if we cannot sustain production,” he said at a briefing for the local media.