UPKO Calls on Federal Government to Drop Appeal Over Sabah’s 40% Revenue Rights Decision

18 January 2026

KOTA KINABALU: The United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation (UPKO) has urged the Federal Government to withdraw its appeal filed at the Court of Appeal concerning the grounds of judgment of the Kota Kinabalu High Court decision dated 17 October 2025 on the judicial review relating to Sabah’s 40 per cent revenue entitlement.

Its President, Datuk Ewon Benedick, said the party’s position was consistent with its principled struggle to resolve the 40 per cent entitlement based on respect and genuine commitment to the proper implementation of Sabah’s rights.

“This is the essence of Malaysia that UPKO must continue to fight for. This is the ‘soul searching’, the political search for our identity, that requires us to look back courageously and ask whether the Federation that was formed has delivered justice in accordance with the agreement signed in 1963,” he said.

He added that the reinstatement of the 40 per cent entitlement was necessary to meet Sabah’s development needs, including poverty eradication, economic programmes, industrialisation and entrepreneurship, public well-being, scholarships, human capital development and various other development initiatives for the people of Sabah.

Ewon made these remarks when officiating at the launch of UPKO’s 17th Triennial Delegates’ Conference at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) here today.

Ewon, who is also Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister III as well as Minister of Industrial Development, Entrepreneurship and Transport, said the second meeting of the senior officers’ committee following the Kota Kinabalu High Court decision was supposed to be held in December but was postponed.

“The position that should have been brought by the Sabah senior officers’ delegation was for the Federal Government to drop the appeal filed at the Court of Appeal. However, the meeting was postponed.

“I cannot answer on behalf of the Federal Government as to why the meeting was postponed; that question should be directed to them,” he said.

Ewon, who is also the Member of Parliament for Penampang, said he would take part in the parliamentary debate and reiterate UPKO’s stance calling on the Federal Government to withdraw the appeal.

“We do not deny that Sabah today is more developed than it was prior to 1963.

“We appreciate the resolution of 13 matters relating to the rights of Sabah and Sarawak under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 to date. We also appreciate that the good relationship between the Federal Government and the State Government has enabled these 13 matters to be resolved.

“However, revenue sharing through the return of 40 per cent of Federal revenue collected in Sabah to the State Government, which ceased to be implemented in 1974, remains the primary demand of the people of Sabah that has yet to be resolved,” he said.

In this regard, Ewon said UPKO stood together with the people of Sabah, whether through governmental, political, legal, academic, activist or social media channels, in continuing to demand a resolution to the 40 per cent entitlement.

“Our presence in the Federal Government from December 2022 until I decided to resign from the Federal Cabinet has placed on record the party’s positions that I have consistently fought for,” he said.