Borneonisation process and policy - I

Malaysia. Report of the Inter-Governmental Committee, 1962. 

Annex B. The Public Service.

1. The arrangement for the Public Service have three main purposes: to provide for the proper functioning of the Federalised and State Departments in the Borneo States when Malaysia comes into being while preserving the existing terms of service of serving officers, to provide for the progressive Borneonisation of the State Departments and over an interim period of the Federalised Departments, and subject to these interim arrangements to provide for the full integration of the Federalised Departments with the Federal Public Service as a whole. The means recommended for achieving these purposes are set out below.

As per the formation of the Federation of Malaysia on 16th September 1963, the Report of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) is one of the legal documents that was signed and agreed by all the partners of the federation namely Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Sabah and co-signatories British.

IGC was an agreement made between governments which made it above and beyond the reach of the federal constitution. This is strengthen further by the federal constitution itself in Article 169 regarding international agreement. This mean, any arrangement and amendments in the federal constitution must be made in-line with the IGC and in this article, must provide for the progressive Borneonisation of the State Departments and over an interim period of the Federalised Departments...

Here, it was mentioned that Borneonisation must be made progressively to the Sarawak and Sabah State Departments as well as to the federalised departments. A lot of people in Malaysia especially Sarawakian and Sabahan already know that their states respectively must be borneonized but we also must know that our rights of borneonisation also covered the federal department!

Borneonisation is a policy and agreed term that must be abide by the Sarawak state government and this process must be made progressively, which means, borneonisation process must be made and achieve as soon as possible, to ensure all the public services in the state to be handed to the people of Sarawak.

Further, Borneonisation is not a concept that only enveloped the state government services, but also must be made progressively to the federal government departments as well. 

This process means that the federal government services also must be made available for the people of Sarawak. This is only fair as the federal government today should be filled by all the signatories partner from Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah respectively. The fairest, there should be 1/3 federal government services fill by each of the component states.

This is the agreement for the formation of the Federation of Malaysia. Any less than that is a breached of the international agreement and may lead to the improper functioning of the Federalised and State Departments in the Borneo States. Any less than that is a failure of "Malaysia".

52 years already in the formation of "Malaysia", did our state and federal government of the day, has made any progress of this policy?

Judge for yourself.

*New information will be continue to be added in this article at a regular basis as per requirement.

Author: Zulfaqar bin Sa'adi. Information Chief of State Reform Party (STAR).