KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah and Federal governments are scheduled to hold negotiations on the state’s claim to 40 percent of net revenue collected from it on June 30, during the Technical Committee Meeting of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) Implementation Action Council, the state assembly was informed today.

Assistant Finance Minister I, Datuk Julita Majungki, said the first meeting for this year was convened on March 13 in Putrajaya, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof.

She added that the state government does not have access to complete data on federal revenue collected in Sabah, despite having submitted 13 requests for data sharing.

To date, no response has been received from the Federal Government, which has hindered the state’s efforts to calculate the actual net revenue collected.

“Nevertheless, the state government has adopted an approach to estimate the Special Grant amount using available data and reasonable assumptions derived from relevant studies,“ she said.

Julita was responding to oral questions from Datuk Ignatius Dorell Leiking (Warisan–Moyog) and Alias Sani (Warisan–Sekong) regarding the latest developments in Sabah’s claim for 40 percent of net federal revenue under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) Implementation Action Council framework.

She clarified that the state government has submitted its claim for the 2023 Special Grant to the Federal government and reaffirmed Sabah’s stance on maintaining the original formula as provided under Article 112C and Part IV of the Tenth Schedule of the Federal Constitution, which stipulates two-fifths, or 40 percent of the net federal revenue derived from Sabah.

“If the negotiations fail to reach a mutual agreement, then an independent assessor must be appointed as per Article 112D(6) of the Federal Constitution,” she said.