Kota Kinabalu (June 3) - A prominent Sabah political figure has stepped forward to challenge the narrative surrounding last week's federal grant announcement, arguing that the RM1.5 billion interim payment to Sabah — while welcome — represents only a fraction of what the state is actually owed under the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
Sabah STAR president and former deputy chief minister Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said the payment announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim during the Kaamatan celebrations at KDCA last Saturday should be understood as a beginning, not a resolution of the longstanding revenue dispute. The Star reported that Kitingan placed the state's true 40 per cent net revenue entitlement for 2026 at somewhere between RM5 billion and RM23 billion — a range that underscores just how wide the gap remains between what Sabah receives and what its advocates say it is constitutionally due.
To illustrate the slow pace of progress, Kitingan laid out the historical payment figures: Sabah received a cumulative RM26.7 million between 1974 and 2021, followed by RM125.6 million in 2022, RM300 million each in 2023 and 2024, RM600 million in 2025, and now the newly announced RM1.5 billion for 2026. The trajectory is clearly upward, but Kitingan was blunt in his assessment — the numbers, however improving, remain far removed from the actual constitutional entitlement.
Beyond the figures, Kitingan raised a structural concern. He called for the establishment of an independently verified mechanism to track all revenue derived from Sabah, arguing that without such a system, there is no reliable way for the state or the public to know exactly what 40 per cent of net revenue actually amounts to. His demand for transparency on revenue tracking is one that Sabah advocates have long pressed for, given that the federal government and the state have yet to agree on a common methodology for calculating the entitlement.
Kitingan also raised a pointed legal question that cuts to the heart of the federal government's stated commitment to MA63. He noted that the Federal Attorney General's office had appealed a Kota Kinabalu High Court ruling from October 2025 — a ruling that, by implication, had favoured Sabah's position on the revenue matter. Kitingan demanded clarity on who authorised that appeal, asking whether the Prime Minister had sanctioned it. If Anwar had not, Kitingan said he must state so publicly and instruct the AG to withdraw the appeal. If he had, then the goodwill conveyed by the RM1.5 billion announcement would be significantly undermined.
The remarks add a sharper edge to the post-Kaamatan conversation around MA63. While Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor and other state leaders had welcomed the increased interim payment as evidence of federal goodwill, Kitingan's intervention reminds Sabahans that the state's constitutional entitlement remains unresolved — and that the distance between an interim gesture and a full settlement is still considerable.