A Sarawak assistant minister has joined in the growing discontent over Petronas Sarawak's hiring policies said to favour Peninsular workers instead of locals.

PBB supreme council member and assistant minister of housing Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah was reported by Free Malaysia Today (FMT) saying priority should be given to the state's residents instead of outsiders.

“If the vacancies are in Peninsular Malaysia, we in Sarawak cannot be bothered with who Petronas hires.

“Until and unless you cannot find an eligible Sarawakian, then you can look elsewhere,” he was reported telling the news website.

"Don’t insult Sarawak," FMT quoted the Sarawak BN leader saying.

Yesterday, Sarawak-based think-tank Suara Petroleum Group expressed concern that Sarawakians were now being retrenched from Petronas as part of the oil giant's restructuring exercise.

13 experienced Sarawakian staff were retrenched and 29 permanent positions were abolished, complained the state-founded group.

It added many Sarawakians had been replaced by Peninsular staff in Bintulu, and that under 50 percent of Petronas Sarawak management staff are state locals.

Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen followed the complaint proposing that employees from peninsular Malaysia working as Petronas executives be barred from the state until the imbalance can be addressed.

'Ban Najib instead'

Meanwhile PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli said while he understood the discontent, banning Peninsular staff would not solve the root of the problem.

This, he said, was BN's failure to keep its promises to the state in terms of autonomy and fairer oil royalties.

Quotas, he argued, would instead be counterproductive to the Sarawak staff as they would be limiting themselves to experience within the state, rather than enjoying the broad opportunities across the Petronas group.

He said in the end, such policies would only put the Sarawak staff on the losing end in the long term.

Speaking from his 10-year experience working with the national oil company, Rafizi said the scope of the Sarawak operations was limited, and a quota system would limit their career advancement and vertical and horizontal mobility.

Therefore, he said those from both sides of the political fence should not focus on attacking Petronas, which he said should strive to be free from political influence.

"In fact, the one they should criticise is Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has made a promise of autonomy (for Sarawak) but appears reluctant to keep it," said Rafizi, who is also PKR vice president.

"It is far better to ban Najib from entering Sarawak than to blame Petronas," he said.