Nor Hisham Mohammad
KUCHING: Fifty out of 53 palm oil processing mills in the state have not obtained the Fire and Rescue Department’s fire certification.
Urging these palm oil processing mills operators to obtain the fire certificate, state Fire and Rescue Department director Nor Hisham Mohammad said a fine of not more than RM5,000 or jail sentence of not more than three years or both can be imposed on owners who do not have the fire certificate.
He said the 50 palm oil mills that had yet to obtain fire certificates from the department made up about 33 per cent of the total premises that had yet to obtain the certification.
“Through the seminar today, we hope that the industry players will clearly understand the importance of obtaining a fire certificate for their palm oil processing mills,” Nor Hisham said in a press conference held after officiating at the Fire and Rescue Department’s fire certification seminar here yesterday.
The seminar was jointly organised by the state Fire and Rescue Department and Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Nor Hisham said the focus of the one-day seminar was on the palm oil processing mills, as the mills were required to obtain fire certificates from the Fire and Rescue Department.
He stated that with the palm oil industry reaching its peak, it would not be a problem for the palm oil industry players to comply with all of the safety measures as part of the conditions to obtain the fire certification.
Meanwhile, Nor Hisham also said that the Fire and Rescue Department had so far issued 185 fire certificates on buildings out of
the 335 buildings in the state that require fire certification by the Fire and Rescue Department.
“The number of fire certificates issued comprise about 54 per cent of the certifications issued to the buildings exceeded the target from the headquarters of 50 per cent in this year.
“By the end of next year, we will need to achieve 70 per cent thus we need to work harder to make the target achievable,” he said.
Nor Hisham revealed that so far, three premise owners had been brought to court, with two of them being fined RM1,000 each while the case of another premises owner had been postponed to January next year.
“We are also in the process of bringing another 74 premise owners mostly from the manufacturing industry to court.
“The cases had been registered and we are in the process of going through the details of the cases prior to the court hearing,” he said.
Nor Hisham said the cases that were brought to court could act as an example and lesson to other building owners to get their buildings certified.
On whether the department would be imposing heftier penalties to errant building owners, Nor Hisham stated the department had proposed to the government but had yet to be approved by the government.