KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas founding chairman Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been invited to lead the Pakatan Rakyat parliamentary caucus to draft a bill on giving royalty to oil-producing states.
Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said Razaleigh had accepted the offer when he was approached at Parliament House on Tuesday.
He added the draft on the Private Member’s Bill on petroleum royalty will be discussed during the PKR convention next month.
“The draft bill will explain the status and state powers on the distribution of oil royalties to the oil-producing states.
“We will table the bill during this parliament sitting,” he said after chairing a Pakatan Rakyat meeting on the matter at Parliament House Tuesday.
Anwar said ambiguity existed in the original Petroleum Development Act 1974, that didn’t specify the issue of territorial rights of oil-producing states, especially on the limits of the state’s rights to offshore oil production.
“We want to make the law explicit so that it doesn’t run against the interests of the state,” he added.
Anwar said he will write to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who is in charge of Parliamentary affairs, to invite Barisan Nasional MPs into the caucus.
Tengku Razaleigh had said that all oil-producing states including Kelantan had a constitutional right to oil royalty.
His view opposed that of Nazri’s who insisted that Kelantan had no right to ask for oil royalty as no petroleum was produced in the states waters within three nautical miles of the coastline.
The Federal Government had labelled the oil payout to Kelantan as a goodwill payment, which the Opposition objected to, saying that money was a right and not a goodwill payment.
Prior to the formation of the caucus, Razaleigh, who was Finance Minister and Petronas chairman when the Petroleum Development Act 1974 came into force, held a short discussion with Pakatan leaders at Parliament House on Tuesday.
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