KUCHING, Feb 5 2026: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan today questioned the willingness of the state government accepting to pay RM1.8 billion for the acquisition of Bintulu Port from the federal government.
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Caption: PBK president Voon Lee Shan (centre) with other PBK leaders, asking why Sarawak needs to pay RM1.8 billion for the take-over of Bintulu Port - Facebook/Voon Lee Shan.
He wanted a transparent disclosure by the Sarawak GPS government on why it agreed to the payment without public consultation,"he said, and asked for an independent assessment of how much the federal government has already earned from Bintulu Port over the decades.
He claimed that the federal government had made lots or money from Bintulu Port -which could be in trillions of ringgits since the Port was taken over by the federal authority.
He said for decades, Bintulu’s land, resources, and strategic location were used by the federal government to generate enormous revenue, without fair compensation to Sarawak.
He added that he has found no publicly disclosed record that the federal government paid any compensation to Sarawak at the time Bintulu was declared a federal port.
He also said that he has found no credible sources to show a payment been made to Sarawak related to that historical change.
“In other words, historically, there is no known cash compensation paid to the state by the federal government for the historical federal status of Bintulu Port,” he said.
He said he could not trace any record that the declaration of Bintulu Port as a federal port by the federal government was made with the mandatory consultation of the Sarawak government or the Sarawak legislative assembly (SLA) at that time, as required under the Federal Constitution (specifically Article 76(1)(c)).
Voon claimed that Parliament passed the Bintulu Port Authority Act 19778 against the will of the Sarawak government and the Sarawak people.
“The federal government, controlled by Malaya, had capitalized on their strength in the federal parliament and also capitalised on the weak leadership and naivety, experience and lack of political knowledge of our people at that time, to pass the Act,” he said.
The Act in 1978 declared an area in Bintulu District to be a federal port. This Act is known as the Bintulu Port Authority Act 1981 established the Bintulu Port Authority (BPA) under the Ministry of Transport. This made the port a federal facility.
Yesterday, federal Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced in Parliament that the Sarawak government had agreed to pay RM1.8 billion for the acquisition of Bintulu Port from the federal government.
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