DAP has taken aim at Adenan Satem, for what they say is the Sarawak chief minister's failure to secure "genuine autonomy" after a high-profile meeting with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak yesterday.

Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen said the deal Adenan conferred from Najib was merely confined to administrative autonomy, which does not grant significant powers to the state.

"What Adenan is negotiating with the federal government is only administrative autonomy, not true autonomy," he said in a statement today.

Chong stressed that genuine autonomy would allow Sarawak to make its own policies, whereas administrative autonomy only allows the state to decide on how to execute pre-determined policies.

"(For example), true autonomy in education means we have the power to decide whether to revive English medium schools, to write our own school syllabus, and to decide how much to allocate for education every year.

"On the other hand, administrative autonomy is only the power to decide where to build schools and who will be the contractors to build those schools, with the funds decided and allocated by the federal government," he noted.

Using another example of Putrajaya's move to suspend the Public Service Department (JPA) scholarships, Chong pointed out that Sarawak would be unaffected and would press on with its own scholarships if it had genuine autonomy.

Chong said the autonomy which Adenan advocated for is merely for departmental heads to carry out policies set by Putrajaya, and is a far cry from the autonomy advocated by Sarawakians and the state DAP.

No true autonomy for Sarawak

"Under the administrative autonomy that Adenan is asking for from the federal government, the state government does not even have the power to decide the annual allocated for education in Sarawak.

"Without the source of revenue at our disposal, there cannot be true autonomy for the state. That is why Sarawak DAP advocates for autonomy in taxation, i.e. 20 percent of oil and gas royalties and 50 percent of all tax revenue collected from Sarawak to be given to the state government," he said.

Chong questioned whether a veteran politician such as Adenan was unable to differentiate between true autonomy and administrative autonomy.

"He is lumping the two together hoping that the people will be fooled into believing that he is fighting for the state’s true autonomy when in actual fact, he is only fighting for administrative autonomy.

"Is Adenan putting up this show with Najib merely for the coming state elections? Is he powerless to fight for true autonomy for Sarawak?" he queried.

Adenan today took to Facebook to announce the deal that he had secured with Najib, following their meeting yesterday.

"We have begun a series of talks with the prime minister and myself with regard to such rights under the constitution, the Malaysia Agreement, the inter-governmental committee report, the Cobbold Commission recommendations and the autonomous position of Sarawak in Malaysia.

"The talks will be carried out in three phases. The first phase is on administrative powers, and the second stage on our rights under the constitution," he said.

Among the measures in the first phase include increasing the number of Sarawak-born teachers to 90 percent of the total teachers serving in Sarawak by 2018, and allowing the state civil service to control all functions under the Social Welfare Department.

The deal also called for the involvement of state agencies in housing projects in Sarawak, and for sports development in the state to be jointly undertaken by both the federal and state governments.

Adenan was also promised that Sarawakians will be given priority for intakes into Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), as well as to increase the enrolment of Sarawakian students in medical degrees at public universities.