MMEA personnel during the search and rescue for the missing boat passengers.
KOTA KINABALU: Momogun National Congress (MNC) president Datuk Henrynus Amin has expressed alarm at the frequency of boats capsizing in relatively calm waters off the west coast of Sabah, especially given the fact that these incidents often involved foreign tourists.
Expressing confidence in the state Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment, Henrynus urged the relevant authorities to carry out a thorough investigation into the latest boat capsize tragedy involving 28 tourists from China and three boat crew members apparently on their way to Mengalum Island about 40 km from Kota Kinabalu to celebrate Chinese New Year.
MNC urged the relevant agencies to speedily investigate the cause of the accident and to publicly report the outcome of the investigation in order to appease public anger and restore public confidence in our tourism industry.
He said the capsized boat incident has attracted unwanted international attention as it was reported by the major world news networks.
This, he said, no doubt will affect confidence in our tourism industry and not to mention the fact that it has also tarnished the good image of the State of Sabah as an attractive and popular tourist destination.
Henrynus said investigations should focus the type of boats used by tour operators including passenger capacity, whether or not there were regular checks on sea worthiness of the boats used by tourism operators and competence of crew members.
Regardless whether or not the boat is registered in Sabah, he said investigations should also focus on the proper coordination between tour operators and relevant agencies to give advice on weather conditions and other safety requirements before approvals are given to tour operators to proceed to island destinations.
He said the public would also like to know whether or not Mengalum Island 40km away has been approved as a safe tourist destination.
“The public wants to know whether or not all aspects of tourist safety or other safety measures have been adhered to by tour operators before allowing tourists to leave port to visit Mengalum Island,” he said.
While MNC has noted comments from Assistant Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Pang Yuk Ming on the incident, Henrynus said MNC feels strongly that the ministry should provide the necessary answers and leadership to mitigate the likely impact of such unfortunate incident involving foreign Chinese nationals.
He said tourism is a very important segment of our state economy and tourists from China are our golden customers.
“Therefore the comments by the Sabah Chinese Consul General in Kota Kinabalu on the incident and the death of at least three Chinese tourists should be taken very seriously,” he said.
“We cannot have too many incidents attracting unwanted negative publicity on our state as a popular tourist destination as we need the continuing arrivals of the Chinese tourists as well as tourists from other countries to keep our tourism industry active or in good financial shape,” he said.
Henrynus said increasing numbers of Malaysians in Sabah are dependent on tourism as operators or employees including in the support industries to earn income to feed families,” he said.
He said MNC is expressing concern because the unwanted international negative publicity on the recent boat tragedy will impact on Sabah tourism across the board, not just tour operators.
He said tourist operators, especially small-time tour operators, transport companies, homestay business, food stalls, tourist guides, handicraft shops, etc along the tourism belt in the west coast of Sabah suffered tremendously after the earthquake in 2015 when tourist arrival was almost at a standstill.
“We certainly do not want a repeat of the same negative international publicity to affect tourist confidence in our state as a popular tourist destination,” he said.
Henrynus meanwhile expressed MNC’s condolences to the families of the victims in the boat tragedy.
MNC, he said, placed its confidence in the leadership of Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun as Sabah Tourism Culture and Environment Minister to get to the bottom of this incident to ensure and restore international confidence in our tourism industry.