KUCHING, June 5 — The Barisan Nasional (BN) Sarawak government has no right to deny Opposition constituencies state funds as it is akin to punishing the people, Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian said today.

"The money we are talking about is public money, and not the Barisan Nasional’s money so what right the BN has to deprive Opposition voters of the benefit of public funds?” he said when responding to Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian’s statement two days ago.

The Ba’Kelalan state assemblyman said people living in Opposition constituencies also contribute to public funds in the form of taxes, both direct and indirect, and, therefore, they have equal rights to enjoy the benefit of their tax contributions.

Dr Sim, who is also the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president, had said that the Opposition lawmakers were not entitled to receive state funds, totalling RM9 million allocated yearly, under the Rural Transformation Programme and Minor Rural Projects for their constituencies.

He had said it had never been the practice of the state government to allocate state funds to the Opposition lawmakers to service their constituencies.

At last month’s session of the state legislative assembly, Baru urged the state government to stop the archaic and oppressive practice of depriving the Opposition-held areas of state funds and to start operating in a more democratic and fairer manner.

He said the allocations must also be made available to representatives from the Opposition, who have the same duties to their constituents as the BN representatives have to theirs.

"Just because it has never been the practice for the state government to allocate funds for Opposition representatives does not make it acceptable,” he said.