KUCHING, Jan 8 — Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen today assured that he will take it up with the Finance Ministry if the state government does not receive its share of tourism tax revenue within the first quarter of this year.
He said it takes three months to finalise the accounts before payment involving millions of ringgit from the tourism tax revenue is distributed to all the state, including Opposition-held states like Sarawak.
“In the sharing of the tourism tax, there is no discriminatory treatment between Sabah and Sarawak and all the states in Malaysia by the Finance Ministry,” Chong said.
Contrary to the claim made by state Tourism, Culture, Arts, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Chong said Sabah has also yet to receive its share of tourism tax revenue from the federal government.
“I urge Karim to be reasonable, sincere and rational when it comes to government-to-government dealings and stop making unreasonable demands and allegations based on unverified information,” he said.
Chong said that Karim should have known that nothing was allocated from the tourism tax revenue for Sarawak and all other states when the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government tabled the Budget 2018 in November 2017.
Chong said the promise to share the tourism tax revenue was only included in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government’s first national budget.
“Why was Karim keeping quiet when the then BN government did not return Sarawak its share of the tourism tax revenue, but made such hue and cry against the PH government when it is only in the first week of 2019?” Chong asked.
