DAP strongman Lim Kit Siang , member of parliement of Ipoh Timur.Accused Najib or Tun Razak as laying about the oil Loyality.
Najib ... ‘no oil production in the waters of Kelantan’
DAP strongman Lim Kit Siang (pic, left) today challenged Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak over the raging issue of oil royalty for Kelantan, asking whether the prime minister or his father, the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, had lied over a state’s entitlement to oil royalties.
“I asked in Parliament today – ‘Who is lying, father (second Prime Minister Tun Razak) or son (sixth Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak?’,” the Ipoh Timur MP said in a statement.
Lim is the latest politician to push the federal government to pay Kelantan oil royalty from oil and gas found in a Thai-Malaysian joint development area off the state’s waters.
Najib had told Parliament on Nov 3 that Kelantan was not entitled to the oil royalties because it was produced off-shore, more than three nautical miles from its coastline but the government would provide “compassionate payment” through the Federal Department as was being done previously in Terengganu when it was ruled by PAS.
“The offshore oil operations in their waters are defined as an area not more than three nautical miles, which is measured starting from the low watermark or the shoreline of the state.
“Currently, there is no oil production in the waters of Kelantan or Terengganu. Because of that, from the legal standpoint, Kelantan does not have a right to demand oil royalties, the same as Terengganu,” Najib was quoted as saying by the parliament Hansard.
“We have decided to give goodwill payment to Kelantan. This decision is made considering the need to develop Kelantan in line with the federal development programme,” Najib told the Dewan Rakyat, adding that the state will be receiving the allocation beginning next year.
The prime minister’s statement contradicts the Statistics Department’s State/District Data Bank, which lists Kelantan as one of the nation’s four oil- and gas-producing states. The other three are Sabah, Sarawak and Terengganu.
Najib’s statement on the goodwill payment was immediately disputed by PAS lawmakers who said it is akin to receiving alms instead of the state’s rightful oil royalty.
Lim said this clearly contradicted the answer given 24 years ago by Najib’s father, Tun Razak when he replied to the opposition leader’s question as the second Prime Minister in Parliament on the same issue in 1975.
According to the Parliament Hansard of Nov 12, 1975, Lim had asked the prime minister then whether all states in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah had signed agreements with Petronas for oil exploration along the coastline and what were the joint profits for the states.
Tun Razak had said then: “All states in Malaysia, except Sabah and Selangor, have signed the agreement with Petronas under the Petroleum Development Act 1974. I have been informed that Selangor have agreed to sign the agreement.
“Under the agreement, each state will receive 5 per cent of the value of petroleum found and extracted from each of the states, whether onshore or offshore, that is sold by Petronas or agencies or contractors.”
“I called on the son and the sixth Prime Minister to keep to the commitment by the father and the second Prime Minister that Kelantan and Trengganu are entitled to 5 per cent oil royalty for petroleum ‘whether onshore or offshore’ as stipulated in the Petroleum Development Act 1974,” Lim said.
He noted that one of the Act’s architects is Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who had spoken up on the legal rights of Kelantan and Terengganu to 5 per cent oil royalty for petroleum produced offshore and not as “wang ehsan” or compassionate payment.
“Otherwise, Najib’s 1Malaysia would be sheer mockery if the legal rights and status of states to oil royalty is politicised to depend on whether Umno/Barisan Nasional controls the state government, as happened to Terengganu and Kelantan,” he added.
The federal government has argued that oil and gas extraction activities are located about 150km off Kelantan’s shores and is jointly developed with Thailand, and thus beyond the legal limit of state/national boundaries. Also, the territory is being disputed by Thailand and Malaysia.
Kelantan, ruled by PAS since 1990, began seeking the oil royalty recently although the Cakerawala gas field began production in January 2005.
The entire 7,250-sq-km area in the Gulf of Thailand, in the oil-rich South China Sea, is called the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Development Area (JDA).
The JDA was created as an interim measure to exploit the natural resources in the seabed or continental shelf claimed by the two countries, with the proceeds shared equally.
The arrangement does not extinguish the legal right to claims by both countries over the area. This is one of the first applications of the joint development principle in territorial disputes in the world.
The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on Feb 21, 1979 in Chiang Mai for joint development and later on May 30, 1990 in Kuala Lumpur to constitute the joint development authority.
As at the end of 2007, approximately 8.5 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves (proved and probable) from 22 fields in the area have been discovered.
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PAS MPs from Kelantan saw red, with Salahuddin asking why Kelantan was slated for charity when the Barisan-Nasional-ruled state of Terengganu received royalty
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