Malaysia Agreement was not violated?

This columinist is just a government propagandist. He does not even read a single word of the agreement and just rely on government propaganda to make his comments.

The agreement clearly stipulate that ALL government posts must be held by Sabahans. And the State government must ensure that this is the case. In other words, the State governments of Sabah and Sarawak are also liable if they violate this condition. The state governments of Sabah and Sarawak cannot give away any of the rights enshrined by the Malaysia Agreement, let alone an acting chief minister of Sabah.

If this is not a violation, what is?

As for the immigration act, supposedly upheld by the courts, it was nothign but a show of face. The director of immigration is not a Sabahan, and the law is now tied to a Federal government's wish and fancy, all in violations of the Malaysia Agreement that accords Sabah full control over Immigration, not one that is managed by a Malayan, staffed by Malayans, laws passed by Malayans. By violating this right, both the State government of Sabah and Federal Government of Malaysia have violated this agreement.

The result is very clear for all to see, Sabah has gone to the stone age, among the poorest in the whole world, with 20% poverty rate, much higher than Perlis at 6%. Even Ivory coast of Africa cannot be that much higher but Ivory coast is much more well developed than Sabah, judging from the conditons of its roads and bridges.

http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/malaysia-agreement-stands-the-test-of-time-1.146409

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21 September 2012 | last updated at 12:12AM

Malaysia Agreement stands the test of time

By John Teo | johnteo808@gmail.com 0 comments

SABAH, SARAWAK RIGHTS UPHELD: Calls for review of its 20 provisions premature

John TeoIT must be just happy coincidence that as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was talking about the state-federal partnership during Malaysia Day celebrations in Bintulu, the same theme of partnership was bandied about in Kuching by the opposition.

The prime minister was expounding on partnership as a fact over the last 49 years since the Malaysia Agreement was inked. The Malaysia Agreement was forged on the basis of a federal arrangement whereby the state and federal governments each has a clearly defined set of responsibilities, with certain overlapping responsibilities coming under a concurrent list.

The Agreement was freely entered into by the expanded nation's founding fathers. It has withstood the test of time, despite some clamour by some quarters from time to time for a vaguely defined "review" of points in the Agreement.

Any call for a "review" may suggest some unhappiness over the terms of the Agreement but unless it is clearly spelt out if any dissatisfaction actually arises out of some breach or contravention of the Agreement and any attempts at seeking redress having been tried and found wanting, any "review" is at best premature.

Whatever dissatisfaction there may be over the so-called 20 points of the Malaysia Agreement in the case of Sabah and 18 points in Sarawak's case has not really amounted to any solid basis for a legal challenge over any breach or contravention of the Agreement so far.

In fact, Sarawak has recently just got another reaffirmation of the state's rights when a legal challenge to its barring of a citizen from Peninsular Malaysia from entering the state filed in a court in the peninsula was thrown out for lack of competent jurisdiction by the said court.

Another persistent matter of contention in Sabah and Sarawak has been over the five per cent petroleum royalty that each state receives from Petronas. Again, it must be recalled that the five per cent quantum was something freely and readily agreed to between Sarawak and the Federal Government after extensive negotiations. The Sabah government quickly followed in signing a similar agreement thereafter.

If anyone should find fault with these particular agreements now, any blame must fall at least equally between the Federal Government and either state government unless it can be shown that the state or federal authorities then put pressure to bear on the other party to sign a pre-drafted agreement.

The first recourse for anyone in either state must be to hold the state government to account and justify the basis for signing the agreement. Partnership, after all, must be a two-way street if it is to mean anything at all.

Indeed, the record thus far would suggest that the Federal Government has usually bent over backwards to accommodate the expectations and demands of the people in both Sabah and Sarawak. Najib brought up the concrete examples of how he readily approved the setting up of a university each in Kuching and Miri while education minister and now a university for Sibu has also been approved. All these universities had been state initiatives.

Yet another loaded accusation has been a complaint that the autonomy enjoyed by both Sabah and Sarawak has somehow been eroded over time. General ignorance may be more at fault here, such as when even senior state officials mistakenly assume Islam to be the official religion for the entire country when constitutional provisions excluding Sabah and Sarawak from having any official religion remain in place.

Also, the imperative of national integration will naturally have taken its course after almost half a century of Malaysia. This is largely for the greater good of the nation as a whole. But admittedly there will be some areas where the people in both Sabah and Sarawak quite firmly believe importing certain norms from the peninsula is unhealthy. Increasingly, even people in the peninsula realise as much and are actually advocating importing Sabah and Sarawak norms over to the peninsula.

It is therefore somewhat mystifying that instead of re-affirming and seeking to strengthen the provisions of the Malaysia Agreement, the opposition sees fit to draw up its so-called "Kuching Declaration" committing the opposition parties to some ill-defined "equal partnership" agreement between state and federal governments and promising that it is a legally-binding document that will stand up in court should a future opposition-led Federal Government not live up to its provisions.

Will someone enlighten us as to what precisely may be wrong with the Malaysia Agreement to warrant an "alternative" agreement now and why, if indeed the original Agreement has its shortcomings, nobody bothered to legally test those shortcomings and the few who actually did find fault find that they themselves come up short?

Read more: Malaysia Agreement stands the test of time - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/malaysia-agreement-stands-the-test-of-time-1.146409#ixzz278bGjmz0