THE Transport Ministry no longer funded maintenance work at federal ports after they were privatised in the 1980s, the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.
Deputy Transport Minister Jelaing Mersat said that after the privatisation exercise, all maintenance work were managed and funded by the port operators themselves.
He said this in reply to a question from Datuk Yusoff Mahal (BN-Labuan) who had wanted to know how much the ministry and government-linked companies spent to maintain ports belonging to the government from 2007 to date.
Jelaing said out of eight federal ports, three were operated by GLCs namely Penang Port, Bintulu Port and Northport while the other five were private entities.
For maintenance work from 2007 to May this year, Jelaing said Penang Port spent RM159.45 million, Bintulu Port RM117.83 million and Northport RM357.6 million. — Bernama