The Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) will take the Federal and British governments to court for dishonouring the Malaysia Agreement, should they win Sabah in the next general elections.

Party president Yong Teck Lee said their legal team has found enough documentation backing their claim that the July 9, 1963 agreement is enforceable in a court of law.

He said among the most obvious breaches was the Borneonisation of the federal public service in Sabah, which he said, has not happened since the deal was struck.

"Until now, 47 years later, all we have been hearing are empty promises. It is no wonder that even the Federal Minister of Information found it so casual to 're-assure' Sabah on the Borneonisation of the public service during the last Malaysia Day," he said at SAPP Petagas' annual general meeting yesterday.

yong teck lee sabah sapp party pc 230409 02 Yong, ( left ) who pulled his party out of the ruling BN coalition in 2008 as a show of no confidence in the-then Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, stressed that the Borneonisation is no mere promise but a legal right of Sabah and Sarawak.

"The promise of Borneonisation of the public service is very well documented in the many memoranda submitted by the leaders of North Borneo and Sarawak, in the Memorandum of the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee, the Cobbold Report, the Inter-Governmental Report.

"Finally, it became a legally binding enforceable right of Sabah and Sarawak in the Malaysia agreement," he said.

Yong pointed out that Sabahans are being pushed out of federal posts in the state every passing day, claiming that it has reached the point where even clerks and drivers are dispatched from the peninsula.

He said Sabahans have nothing against fellow Malaysians from West Malaysia, but questioned why the federal government is employing less and less locals.

"We worry also about the job opportunities of young Sabahans in increasing numbers facing a bleak future. If even computer technicians are posted from Semenanjung, what hope do the locals have?

"It is as though there are no capable Sabahans," he said.

'Give us the mandate'

Yong said, however ,that there is little his party can do to pursue the case, as only the state government has the legal right to such litigation.

"... once SAPP forms the new state government after the 13th General Election, we will issue a six-month notice to the Federal Government to implement Borneonisation as agreed upon in the Malaysia Agreement 47 years ago," he said.

Should the federal government fail to make "substantial changes" at the end of the six-month period, Yong warned that they will immediately launch their legal challenge.

"What is there to discuss? It is not like the agreement was only signed today but it has already been for 47 years, so what else is there to negotiate," he said, adding that they would launch a similar legal challenge in London against the British government at the same time.