The Federal Government had acted unlawfully, unjustly and undemocratically when it unilaterally abrogated the 25-year-old Petronas oil royalty agreement with Terengganu to pay 5 per cent oil royalty as a blatant UMNO political reprisal and revenge against the people of Terengganu for voting in a PAS state government in the last general election.
Until September last year, every Finance Minister in the past two decades
had recognised the Terengganu state government's right to oil royalty and
this is fully borne out by the Economic Report 1978/1979 presented
by the Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in Parliament in October
1978, which is most significant as it was Razaleigh who signed the 1975
Petronas
agreement with the Terengganu State Government when he was the President
and Chief Executive of the national oil corporation spelling out the "cash
payments" of 5 per cent oil royalty to Terengganu.
The Terengganu state government has acted righty in instituting legal proceedings for the reinstatement of more than RM800 million in annual oil royalty due to it under the 1975 agreement, as Mahathir had acted in utter contempt of the rule of law in hijacking the oil royalty for direct disbursement by a parallel but illegal government as wang ehsan to the people of Terengganu.
After honouring the Petronas agreement for a quarter of a century, the correct and proper thing for Mahathir to do if he contends that the Terengganu state government has no legal right to the 5 per cent oil royalty is to seek an interpretation of the Petronas agreement from the courts and not to act unilaterally in an undemocratic and unjust manner to hijack the state's oil royalty.
Mahathir said two days ago when arguing for UMNO's initiated "Malay
Unity" talks with PAS that the Malays should place greater importance
on the race and not their parties. Did Mahathir place greater importance
on the race and not on UMNO when he hijacked the Terengganu oil royalty
from the PAS state government?
(9/3/2001)