Sabah PH reps go to court over 40pc revenue share for state
Published on: Friday, June 03, 2022
By: FMT Reporters
Eleven of the 12 Sabah Pakatan Harapan elected representatives outside the Kota Kinabalu court complex today. (DAP pic)
PETALING JAYA: Twelve Pakatan Harapan (PH) elected representatives in Sabah have filed a legal action at the Kota Kinabalu High Court, seeking a declaration that the state’s 40% revenue share formula is still applicable.
They are also seeking declarations that a review of Putrajaya’s annual grant to Sabah should have been carried out in 1974, and that the 2022 review – jointly announced by the federal and Sabah state governments in April – was unconstitutional.
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Among the representatives involved were Sabah PKR chief Christina Liew, Tuaran MP Wilfred Madius Tangau, Sabah DAP chief Frankie Poon, Sabah Amanah chief Lahirul Latigu, and Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin.
Their lawyer, Nelson W Angang, said in consequence to the first declaration, the group also wanted the federal government to disclose to the state government the net revenue derived from Sabah annually.
“This is for the state to understand how much the 40% actually is. To understand how much that is, we first need to understand how much 100% is,” Nelson said at a press conference.
He said another consequence sought from the declaration of the grant’s applicability was for the courts to declare that any review of Article 112D must be based on the 40% formula.
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If the courts agree that a review should have been carried out in 1974, he said, they want a declaration that the payment from then onwards should be based on the 40% formula, and not on the RM26.7 million which Sabah had been receiving as a fixed annual payment since the 1970s.
In April, Putrajaya said its annual payment to Sabah would be increased to RM125.6 million (from RM26.7 million) this year.
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But Nelson said the 2022 review of the formula was unconstitutional because it was not based on the 40% revenue share formula.
“We know they are further negotiating but we want the courts to decide because ‘further negotiating’ is not a certainty.
“We want the court to rule that once Article 112D is involved, you have to use the 40% as the basis,” he said.
Sabah’s claim stems from the Federal Constitution, which states that the federal government must allocate to Sabah and Sarawak special grants each financial year.
In March, finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz shocked Sabah political leaders about a new revenue-sharing formula between Sabah and the federal government, when he said the 40% formula no longer applied.
For Sabah, the amount of the grant is stated as being equal to two-fifths, or 40%, of the amount by which the tax revenue collected by the federal government from Sabah exceeds the net revenue derived in 1963, the year Malaysia was formed.
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