One of the more memorable acts of Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem was getting an all-party motion unanimously passed by the State Assembly not long after assuming office.
That motion, seeking to increase the quantum of royalties the state receives from Petronas from the present five per cent to a whopping 20 per cent, evidently captured the popular imagination and contributed much to Adenan’s soaring popularity in the lead-up to the ensuing state election, that he and the Sarawak Barisan Nasional he led won handily.
But if the legislative initiative was breathtakingly bold and unprecedented, it also got nowhere. Quite what was the real intent of the move remains unclear.
The five per cent royalty payments had been the fruit of an agreement between the state and federal governments as part of the consultations and negotiations which resulted in the creation of the national oil corporation in 1974.
Changing the terms will presumably entail reopening negotiations and attaining a new agreement with Putrajaya and Petronas, not by way of a unilateral state legislative action.
If the move was meant to be a grand opening shot in an overall state initiative to regain the state’s political autonomy in areas where the state has been complaining they have been cumulatively encroached upon over the years, it might have worked but only in the sense that the assembly motion expressed in no uncertain terms the state’s unity of purpose in that regard.
The state government had mulled and lately decided against either introducing on its own or supporting the opposition in yet another assembly motion, this time regarding political autonomy.
Adenan suffered quite a public backlash from this decision, indicating how it is problematic to try re-bottling the genie once it has been unleashed.
Adenan now argues that “diplomacy is better than confrontation” and is pointing to progress — however gradual — in the efforts to repatriate supposedly lost state autonomy rights. He also pointed out that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been sympathetic and receptive to Sarawak’s requests as exemplified by other issues agreed recently with Petronas.
If the state administration has lately come to the realisation that meaningful progress on its requests and demands necessarily entails rather meticulous study of the overall implications followed by sober negotiations between both it and the federal administration before any fresh agreement can be arrived at, a good start will have been made.
A process has actually already been officially set in motion and patience is definitely called for to let it take its natural if somewhat complicated and laborious course.
Two federal ministers — Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri from Sarawak and Datuk Seri Anifah Aman from Sabah — co-chair a steering committee specifically tasked with looking into the devolution of powers to both states.
Nancy revealed earlier this week in Kuching that a technical committee chaired by the Attorney-General and comprising nominees from the Federal Government and both state governments is still poring over priority areas related to finance, oil exploration, mining and gas and land matters and revenue from land before it presents its findings in a report to the steering committee for specific recommendations and solutions to be presented to cabinet by the year-end.
Political grandstanding on the matter at hand is thus best to be avoided by all at this stage. It is however to be hoped that all parties involved in the various committees go about their work with the seriousness and urgency that the people in both Sarawak and Sabah clearly expect the issue to be handled.
At the same time, both the people and their elected representatives in Sarawak and Sabah also need to recognise that the matter at hand and the process it has induced are not a zero-sum game where one side gains and the other loses.
This is perhaps best captured by the fact that both Nancy and Anifah happen to be from Sarawak and Sabah, respectively, but also represent the Federal Government.
Their joint responsibility and maybe even historic obligation require that they seek a “win-win” path for the government they represent and the respective states that they also represent.
That path is neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive. Malaysians will collectively gain if we arrive at a new and improved optimal outcome that satisfies the aspirations of those in Sarawak and Sabah, while also improving overall governmental efficiency.
That is the very essence of why we are a federation: we keep our distinct state identities while enjoying the benefits of being part of a bigger nation.
John Teo views developments in the nation, the region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching