By Shalina R.
Restore Sabah fisheries rights — MP
KOTA KINABALU: DAP Sabah advisor Jimmy Wong Sze Phin has urged the state government to take back the state fisheries rights in order to preserve the fish stock in Sabah.
Jimmy stated that Sabah had been stripped of its fishery deep sea licensing power following the declaration of a state of national emergency after the May 13, 1969 riots.
He said, since then, Sabah and Sarawak cannot issue deep-sea fishing licenses because jurisdiction of the continental shelf off the states’ coasts had been taken over by the federal government and damaged Sabah’s economy in terms of fishery.
“The power had been taken away from Sabah and never restored. That is how they steal the power from Sabah. Taking advantage of the emergency, taking away the power forever,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.
“These are the power taken away at the expense of Sabahans. Now Sabahans have to pay very dearly. This year alone, all fish prices had increased by 60% on average because this year, (the catch) had dropped by 50%, from 100 tonnes a month to 50 tonnes a month.
“The state government is powerless to do anything and the enforcement agencies are also under the federal government. The state government has no power to enforce,” he added.
Jimmy said although the state minister in charge cannot be blamed for this matter, he urged Deputy Chief Minister cum Agriculture and Food Industry minister Datuk Seri Panglima Yahya Hussin to use his state voice to overcome the state fishery issues.
He stressed that Yahya should demand for the federal government to restore the power to issue deep sea license and start from a blank slate by cancelling all the deep sea licenses issued, especially those issued to the licensed local fishing companies giving out their leases to Vietnamese foreign vessels so they could fish in Malaysian deep waters. Jimmy claimed that a fishing association in Sabah had proven that the missing 50% of the catch in Sabah sea waters had ended up on foreign vessels and never arrived at the state shores.
“That means all the catch by the foreign vessels had been taken away to their country,” he said.
Jimmy said he had also brought the issue to the attention of the minister in charge of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) Datuk Shahidan Kassim in the first week of Parliament, recently.
“The minister had asked his department and agencies to take action immediately on the matter. He agreed that the matter is very serious,” he shared.
“He (Shahidan) also acknowledged that in Sarawak, about 14 illegal fishing vessels from Vietnam had been caught but he couldn’t remember how many illegal boats had been caught in Sabah,” added Jimmy, who is also Kota Kinabalu member of parliament. The DAP Sabah advisor said he also issued a Special Chamber in order to pursue the issue further in Parliament.
“We have the chance to go face to face with the minister (concerned) on this issue and have it quoted in the Parliament hansard,” he said, adding an emergency motion had also been issued by Sandakan member of parliament Stephen Wong Tien Fatt on July 27.
“We are pursuing this angle very seriously because it affects our livelihood and standards. Everyone had to pay for the negligence,” he added.
The Sabah Anglers Association and Kota Kinabalu Fishing Boat Owners Association (KKFBOA) had recently called on the state government to ban Vietnamese fishing boats. This demand follows the arrest of more than 40 Vietnamese fishermen for various offences, including using prohibited fishing methods in Malaysian waters.
The Continental Shelf Act, Sabah and Sarawak in 1969, had taken the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the states over the seabed and subsoil of submarine areas adjacent to the coast of Malaysia, making it beyond the limits of the territorial waters of the states.
However, the Territorial Sea Act 2012 came into effect and reverted the positions back to the pre-1969 emergency orders, limiting both Sabah and Sarawak’s jurisdictions to three nautical miles (5.5km) from the coastline.