Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in response to a reader named K.C.Jong on his blog - Ah Jib Goh, regarding the Cabotage Shipping Policy which governs the cargo vessels plying between Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia since 1980, stressed that all foreign cargo vessels are free to berth at any harbour in Malaysia, and that shipping companies are also free to ship out goods from any port out of the country.
Najib said that the transportation of goods are decided by the shipping companies, which is based on commercial considerations.
The main factor affecting the decision where to unload the cargo is the logistic volume. It is not decided by the government, and government does not get involved.
Najib is repeating the answer given by the Transport Minister, Dato' Seri Kong Cho Ha. When queried by Datuk Seri Panglima Wong Khen Thau, the president of Federation of Sabah Manufacturers (FSM) earlier on,Dato Seri Kong gave the exact answer,word for word.
Datuk Seri Panglima Wong was seeking the help of the transport minister in amending the Cabotage Policy in order to allow foreign vessels to load goods which are destined for Sabah at Port Klang if there is any space left after finished loading goods meant for foreign countries.These vessels can then make a detour to Sabah on their way to foreign countries.After unloading at Sabah ports, they can up load goods from Sabah ports to fill up any empty space.Then they can continue on their journey home.
Similarly, incoming vessels would first come to Sabah, unload imported goods then upload goods for export to fill up any empty space.Then these vessels would proceed to travel to Port Klang.
Datuk Seri Panglima Wong claimed that this is not possible with the existing policy, it requires that all goods arriving at Port Klang to be unloaded, any goods destinations of which are the 2 East Malaysia states have to be handled by local companies which charge handling fees 10 times higher than those for foreign countries.Similarly, goods for export will have to be sent to Port Klang first, again handled by local companies.
Why is this so? Maybe the original motive was to protect the local companies, which is fine, but they should not take advantage of the monopoly and charge unreasonable rates.
I feel that the request by Datuk Seri Panglima Wong is very reasonable if what he claimed is true.
However, the transport minister seemed to have misunderstood Datuk Seri Panglima Wong's request. He told the press that the government has allowed foreign cargo vessels to stop at any port in Malaysia freely all along, implying that Datuk Seri Panglima Wong had wrongly accused the transport ministry. Datuk Seri Panglima Wong was furious on reading this reply, and vowed to bypass the transport minister and go straight to the prime minister for assistance.
But now that the prime minister himself is giving the exact answer as that of the transport minister, what's next?
The government is playing the words game. They keep saying the decision is made by the shipping companies on their own free will. But many a time, these so called "shipping" companies are merely forwarding agents, they do not own a single ship.They may rent one once in a blue moon, but they are not ship owners.If they are, these are small in number as compared to the total number of local shipping companies.They deal with the foreign ships' owners for maximum profits, that is all that is to it.
The FSM should counter this by writing a clear letter purging any ambiguous words and present their case clearly again. They should specifically request that foreign cargo vessels which chose to come direct to East Malaysia, be allowed to pick up goods meant for export, HANDLED by forwarding companies of the goods owners' choice, then proceed to travel to Port Klang.Do not force these vessels to leave for foreign countries from here. Similarly, vessels berthed at Port Klang be allowed to pick up goods meant for East Malaysia, HANDLED by forwarding companies of the owners' choice.
Also do not force them to leave for foreign countries directly. FSM should specifically mention that their president did not request for vessels to be allowed to berth at East Malaysia ports, which he knew very well they are allowed to do so already.
What he asked for is to allow the foreign vessels to make a DETOUR to East Malaysia when they leave Pork Klang for home, and vice versa.
between Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia are smaller in capacity? If that is the case, why don't the foreign companies use these smaller vessels for transporting goods to East Malaysia only? The FSM should
take the initiative to persuade the foreign shipping companies to employ these smaller vessels to transport their products directly in order to stop been squeezed by the local forwarding agents. An another alternative is to form forwarding companies under the control of the FSM, certainly these companies will have the best interests of FSM in mind. Then only you will be free from the iron grip of the so called "shipping" companies.
If you think this is too troublesome, then pay for it and have an easy life.
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