Cabotage: ‘I carry my statement to coffin’

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SEPANGGAR: Datuk Seri Panglima Wong Khen Thau has urged the government to locate and find a solution to help Sabah deal with the effects of the Cabotage Policy.

Wong, who effectively became the past president of Federation of Sabah Industries (FSI) at 2 pm yesterday, said, “The effect of the policy is on the people, the goods and the industry in Sabah. Don’t get it wrong. We never challenge the cabotage policy per say. We only challenge the effect of the cabotage policy on the people in Sabah.

“Any right minded person in Sabah here, you can imagine this policy is affecting us. If you say no effect to the people of Sabah, I think they are lying. I don’t care who gave whatever opinion, whether they are minister, or prime minister.

“I stress my statement; I carry my statement to the coffin. This is a real fact. Directly or indirectly it is affecting,” said Wong adamantly at a press conference held after the FSI annual general meeting here yesterday.

He said partial liberalization of the cabotage in 2009 did not solve the issue and the cabotage is indirectly hindering foreign ships from coming into Sabah directly as they are not allowed to bring goods out of Sabah.

“For the simple fact that to say that cabotage policy the problem is already resolved, then I believe it is too naïve to say that. As far as we are concerned the problem is still there.

“I think it is basically a very misleading statement. Of course, the minister concerned who said that, we respect his opinion and if he thinks the problem is already resolved, I feel like good luck to him. But the people in Sabah must be informed properly. That is what I feel,” he said.

Wong added that this alone hinders Sabah’s export potential among many other things.

“We do not want to argue why the government want to keep the policy but while you are keeping it people in Sabah are asking for something.

“We are not against anyone but we want to deal with the issue. For the sake of the industry in Sabah, can the government do something for us such as the development of Sepanggar Bay as the hub of the far east,” he said, while adding that Philippines had already sought for the United States of America government’s assistance to develop a regional hub in the country.

Wong also highlighted the absence of developing the Sepanggar Bay in the 11th Malaysia Plan.

“If they say it is already gazetted, where? Then why didn’t they do it? To seek for the funding they should put it under the 11th Malaysia Plan so the federal government can come in but why is it not in?” questioned Wong.

He also urged the federal and the state government to conduct a proper study on the logistics supply chain to pinpoint the source that is causing the difference in price between Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.

“They should do a proper study. I have given the benefit of the doubt. The highest contributor to this is definitely in the shipping.

“There are ten entities in the logistic supply chain, if each entity contributes 8% to the total logistics cost that would account for 80% of it, so where is the 20%? The Ministry of Industrial Development however said it is 6%, which will make it 60%. What happened to the 40%?” queried Wong about the unaccountable percentage contributing to the total logistics cost that would affect the price.

He also said that the implementation of the cabotage policy in Malaysia should not be compared to places like Indonesia, who is also implementing the cabotage policy.

“If it doesn’t benefit the people in general, why should they have it? Singapore and Hong Kong do not have cabotage policy, Europe already do away with their cabotage policy. Places like Indonesia have cabotage policy because it is obviously benefitting them.

“In our case, who is benefitting from the cabotage policy? The people of Sabah and Sarawak? You can tell me one thing that we can benefit. The government is already very strongly helping their shipping industry only. So helping the shipping the industry at our expense?”

He felt that the leaders and even national leaders have been misled by the Ministry of Transport.

“If they cannot convince, they confuse them. The people in Sabah are confused especially the people in rural areas, who in fact  are the most affected ones. The elite people in Sabah who have benefited from a little bit of education would understand what is happening,” said Wong.

Blaming the unstandardized prices between the Peninsular and East Malaysia on unscrupulous business practices is also illogical, said Wong.

“Now the whole thing is thrown back to Sabah. So now you are accusing every businessman of profiteering including Bumiputera businessmen. In any business, we accept that there are such people like the good, bad and ugly. The bad will obviously go for profiteering, increase the price unnecessarily.

“But don’t tell me every businessman is profiteering because now the present market prices for goods are more or less the same here. Our goods are in general, more expensive than in Peninsular Malaysia. Don’t tell me every business is profiteering here,” he said.

“That is exactly the statement made by one or two of the leaders, which is very unfair to the business community. As if the business community is not contributing to the society. Mind you that, we are the largest contributor to the national income tax. We have been paying income tax and paying for the development of the country,” added Wong.

Wong also reiterated the need for a logistics council that has been proposed by Tan Sri Pairin Kitingan

“It is very unfortunate; we have been talking about it. Tan Sri Pairin Kitingan also with us but there is nothing happening. This is the sad thing. That is what I said earlier on, we change our format. Last time we ask them to abolish the cabotage it will solve the problem but since they still want to maintain then okay you need to do something for us here because the industry in Sabah is not growing, if the minister is saying that the industry is growing, I don’t know,” he shrugged.

Datuk Mohd Basri Abd Gafar, the new FSI president reiterated the need to set up a logistics council.

“Now Sabahans are divided, I think the best way is to have that logistics council where all stakeholders are in a meeting place so they come together and discuss and make decisions there. If Kuala Lumpur is not willing to have a logistic council, Sabah logistics council with Ministry Infrastructure, maybe start with Tan Sri Pairin and the stakeholders.

“To me that is a better approach but it is not guaranteed if we will be able to achieve this, but of course there are other issues. FSI doesn’t exist just because of cabotage there is so many other issues that we need to address.