PARLIAMENT PAS' Kuala Terengganu MP Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad called on the government today to explain whether the recent hike in fuel prices was due to subsidy rationalisation or because money was running out of the country's coffers.

Raja Kamarul said that at a time when all other governments have reduced oil prices in line with dropping global oil prices, Malaysia was moving in the opposite direction, indicating that the government did not foresee oil prices reducing.

"About 40 percent of the annual federal budget is reliant on oil revenue. About 90 percent of Terengganu's state budget is reliant on the same," he said.

"This kind of planning is suicidal," Raja Kamarul ( right ) added.

He said that the government had been over-reliant on oil and gas revenue and that it is now "too late" for it to diversify.

"This is a lazy government," he blasted.

Raja Kamarul also questioned why it took the government 40 years to determine that no oil was being extracted from either Kelantan, Pahang, or Terengganu.

He was referring to former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein’s statement in 1974 that oil royalties will be paid to the oil-producing states.

However, late last month, a committee set up by the government concluded that the oil being extracted was not being done in the territories of any of these states.

“This is 40 years of a series of deceptions. First it was royalty, then it was wang ehsan, then it was royalty again. Why did it take 40 years to come up with a conclusion like this?” he said.

He said that in an era where different territories in many other countries are claiming more and more rights to natural energy and minerals being mined from their territories, Malaysia is “regressing” for failing to recognise even those rights.

“This is very consistent for Malaysia, they are regressing in the opposite direction to all the other countries globally,” he said.