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
Email Print
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
No comments:
Post a Comment