KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 — The Ministry of Finance is redrafting the policy and scope of “wang ehsan” or goodwill payments to the Kelantan and Terengganu state governments.
Deputy Finance Minister I Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said redrafting the use of the wang ehsan funds aligns with the national agenda to reduce poverty in the two East Coast states. “However, petroleum revenue will be paid directly to the states if oil was discovered and obtained within the states’ territorial waters of three nautical miles as measured from the low-water line as per the Territorial Sea Act 2012 ,” he said during the winding up of the debate on the motion of thanks for the royal address by the ministry in the Dewan Negara today.
Ahmad Maslan said that currently, the flow of wang ehsan to the Kelantan and Terengganu state governments was at the discretion of the federal government, seeing that no oil had been obtained based on the terms of Act 750. The deputy finance ministry also revealed that wang ehsan payments in 2022 to Kelantan totalled RM344.60 million, while Terengganu received RM1.69 billion. — Bernama