Sabah CM expects PM Ismail Sabri continues MA63 talks

Datuk Hajiji Noor, Chief Minister of Sabah, expects that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob would continue talks on the 1963 Malaysia Agreement (MA63) between the Federal government and the governments of Sabah and Sarawak through the Special Council on MA63.

He said that the previous Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin‘s special council should be reconvened, since considerable progress had been made during early discussions.

The social compact between the regions established by the country’s pioneers under MA63 is being fulfilled, he said during the 2021 Malaysia Day celebration at the Sabah International Convention Centre.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri; Minister of Communications and Multimedia Tan Sri Annuar Musa; Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah and Sarawak Affairs) Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili; Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Bung Moktar Radin and Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan as well as other Federal and state Cabinet ministers were also present.

Hajiji emphasized that in the 58 years since Malaysia’s establishment, the state government’s goal was to see the people and state receive substantial credit for their contributions to advancing Malaysia’s development into a more affluent, peaceful, developed, and secure nation.

Meanwhile, he said that the state administration headed by the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) sincerely appreciated the promise to make MA63 a focal point of recent bipartisan collaboration through the memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked at the Federal level.

He also urged all Sabahans to stay together in the spirit of the “Malaysian Family,” expressing his trust in the Prime Minister’s leadership and predicting that Sabah will benefit from increased growth on all fronts.

In his address, Bung Moktar said that despite the low-key nature of this year’s Malaysia Day celebration, he was sure that Malaysians, particularly those in Sabah and Sarawak, cherished their homeland. “We are now at war with a hidden and deadly adversary. Let us all pray for perseverance and strength to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, to continue the heritage of progress, and to restore the country’s economy and prosperity,” he added.