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Remember your pardon from Kelantan sultan, PN tells Anwar

Pengkalan Chepa MP Ahmad Marzuk Shaary refers to the government's decision not to grant a 5% oil royalty to Kelantan and Terengganu.

Ahmad Mustakim Zulkifli
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Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim with Kelantan ruler Sultan Muhammad V in 2019. Photo: Facebook
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim with Kelantan ruler Sultan Muhammad V in 2019. Photo: Facebook

Pengkalan Chepa MP Ahmad Marzuk Shaary today told Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to remember the pardon granted to him by Kelantan ruler Sultan Muhammad V, following the government's decision not to grant Kelantan and Terengganu oil royalty of 5%. 

He said Sultan Muhammad, during his time as Agong, had consented to release Anwar who at that point was serving time for a sodomy conviction. 

He also urged Anwar to uphold Sultan Muhammad's decree for petroleum payments to the state of Kelantan to be fulfilled according to the agreements signed. 

"The joint-development area, a petroleum mining area that overlaps with Thailand, is only 145km from the Bachok beach.

"But the government decided in 1996, when Anwar was finance minister, to move the landing to Songkhla, which is 230km away. 

"If you want to raise the dignity of the Malays, where are the Malays in Songkhla? If you want to help the hardcore poor, it should have been done in Bachok," he said during his debate on the Supply Bill 2023 in the Dewan Rakyat.

Anwar was released from prison after obtaining a royal pardon following Pakatan Harapan's victory at the 2018 general election. 

Marzuk said Sultan Muhammad had also ordered that the produce of the land be based in Kelantan, which completed its petroleum industry zone at Pantai Bachok in 1990.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman Said had said that Kelantan and Terengganu did not qualify to receive petroleum royalties as they could only claim rights up to three nautical miles, according to the Regional Sea Act 2012.

Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli meanwhile said that the country's oil and gas deposits could exceed that distance.

He also said that 50% of infrastructure development funds in the budget for 2023 would go to Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Sabah and Sarawak.