KOTA KINABALU: There is no official announcement yet to substantiate viral messages claiming that Sabah and Sarawak will be referred to as “federal territories” from Thursday (April 8), says Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.

“As long as there is no order from the Prime Minister’s Department on this yet, we cannot simply change a term, we have to wait, ” Jeffrey said.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that although Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had mentioned that Sabah and Sarawak have higher positions than a state, no official order has been made for government departments to start referring to Sabah and Sarawak as federal territories yet.

Muhyiddin said that both Sabah and Sarawak have the same status as Peninsular Malaysia as a territory in the Federation of Malaysia during the course of a two-day working visit to Sarawak that began on April 1.

On Muhyiddin's statement, Jeffrey said that the other confusion that rose from this statement was that people think that with Sabah and Sarawak being referred to as "wilayah" meant that they would also be duty-free like Labuan.

“This is not the case. The ‘wilayah’ the Prime Minister referred to when mentioning Sabah and Sarawak is in the context used prior to the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, and not the same as Labuan’s position, ” he said.

Jeffrey added that Labuan is not even a state and does not have the status of a state.

“Maybe in the future, we will only refer to Sabah and Sarawak as it is without adding ‘states’ to it and then we will be seen and acknowledged as equals with Peninsular Malaysia as three individual entities, ” he said.

He also said that in the context of Malaysia, referring to Sabah and Sarawak as federal territories is not an issue of it being good or bad, but as one term to differentiate Sabah and Sarawak from the other states in the country.

“We are not talking about Sabah and Sarawak as states, but them having an equal status with Peninsular Malaysia, ” said Jeffrey.

He said Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia are three entities and added that there needs to be a clearer and more accurate term used to refer to these two (now) states to avoid confusion.

According to the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia (then known as Malaya) are equal partners and hence have equal rights to revenues and policy making among others.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/04/09/sabah-sarawak-not-federal-territories-as-claimed-in-viral-message-says-jeffrey-kitingan