Soi Lek flays Sabri, Noh for ‘threatening’ fishermen

KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — Withpublic anger brewing over rising seafood prices due to a three-day strike by over 1,000 fishermen and trawler operators, MCA rebuked Cabinet ministers Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Datuk Seri Noh Omar today for their refusal to respond to the strike over the cut in diesel subsidies.

Those operating trawlers in the C2 category or 30 nautical miles offshore have been on strike since Saturday over the June 1 hike from RM1.25 to RM1.80 per litre.

“A Cabinet decision is not cast in stone, so there is no need to threaten fishermen. The minister concerned should engage fishermen then these problems will not have arised.

“If you don’t want to meet them but threaten them, then it doesn’t gel with the prime minister’s emphasis of people first, performance now,” said MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar have stressed that the government will not respond to the fishermen’s strike.

Ismail Sabri said he would not discuss the matter with the striking fishermen while Noh warned fishermen from other categories not to join the strikes or have their licenses revoked.

Dr Chua (picture) said that while MCA agreed that the government needed to cut the subsidy bill that would otherwise double to RM21 billion this year, Putrajaya should fine-tune the implementation to ensure that any dissatisfaction could be rectified.

“The subsidy needs to be rationalised in the long term but it is a 44 per cent jump in diesel price. The government should relook, maybe have a halfway house for a given timeframe,” the former health minister said.

He added that continuing the strike would not resolve the issue and reminded the C2 operators that they were still receiving a subsidy of RM1 per litre at current prices.

MCA had earlier proposed that the price increase should be increased by only 15 sen to RM1.40 per litre or kept at the previous rate while scrapping the 10 sen incentive for every kilogramme of fish caught.

Until May 31, 2011, the C2 trawler operators received a subsidy of 28,000L to 30,000L of diesel at RM1.25/L per month.

Diesel super subsidies were removed for the C2 fishing trawlers and nine other logistic-related groups this month.

Putrajaya said the subsidy cuts would save RM659.30 million, and was due to the global increase in fuel prices.

The Najib administration is being forced to take a razor to its subsidy bill despite surging inflation which hit a two-year high of 3.2 per cent in April as it attempts to bring the budget deficit down to 5.4 per cent after it hit a two-decade high of 7 per cent in 2009.