Perakians to rally against Vale plant

A Perak NGO has announced that it will start a signature campaign and is planning to hold a mass rally to urge the state government to review the Brazilian iron ore project.

PETALING JAYA: A group claiming to speak for Perak citizens today announced that it will be organising a peaceful rally to protest against the multi-billion iron ore processing plant being built by Brazilian mining giant Vale International in the coastal town of Teluk Rubiah, Manjung.

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens of Perak (CCCP) said that it would also initiate a signature campaign to get more Perakians to demand that the state government reviews the controversial 450-acre project.

“We demand that this project be temporarily stopped and reviewed due to the many risks it poses to the people of Lumut and Perak,” said CCCP chairman Zainal Abidin Osman.

“All citizens of Perak, especially in Lumut and Pangkor, are urged to participate in this campaign for the sake of their future and the future of their children.

“This signature drive will culminate in a peaceful rally to urge and compel the state government to review the project and put proper guidelines in place to ensure the safety of our environment, livelihood and future,” he said.

The signature drive would begin on March 21 while more details about the rally, where “thousands of Perakians are expected to turn up”, would be announced on March 29.

Zainal said that Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir must take immediate steps to address the concerns of residents in Perak.

“We also urge the state government to stop Valemax, the world’s largest iron ore container ships, from entering Lumut,” he added.

Zainal said this would prevent a similar incident such as the one involving a “Vale Beijing” (carrier) in Brazil last December, where the ship suffered structural damages and “had to be towed and repaired with great difficulty.”

“Even China has denied Vale the right to dock its giant ships at Chinese ports, citing technical and potential environmental problems,” he added.

Nation’s security at risk

CCCP said that the Vale project was a “huge disaster in waiting”. It said it needed to spearhead such a public protest as many Perakians objected the project but were just “sitting silently at home.”

Previously, CCCP had raised concerns that the government had relinquished a “national asset” such as the local jetty in Teluk Rubiah to foreign powers, and said that security of the country was being put at risk.

Vale is the world’s largest iron mining and processing company. It has a locally registered company called Vale Malaysia Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, which started constructing the Teluk Rubiah plant last July.

The plant is expected to be operational by June 2014. It would process blended iron ore and pellets used in steel production for distribution to customers in Malaysia, Australia, China, Japan and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

The jetty would be the destination point for massive Vale ships of 400,000-deadweight tonnes carrying iron ore from Brazil.

Vale is investing RM4 billion in the first phase of the project, during which the plant would be capable of handling 60 million tonnes of iron ore a year. The state government has said that Vale’s investment would eventually come to between RM9 billion and RM14 billion.

Locals unhappy with the project

In interviews that FMT conducted last August, many local residents, mostly fishermen, expressed fears for their health and livelihood.

Consumer and environmental groups had consistently voiced opposition against the project. They said the Vale plant and its activities would destabilise the ecosystem of the area, formerly gazetted as a forest reserve.

Concerns had also been raised that the local tourism industry would take a blow from which it might not recover.

Former menteri besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin claimed that the state government under Zambry had sacrificed public interest for the material benefit of a select few.

In January, the Malaysian chapter of the international coral reef monitoring organisation, Reef Check Malaysia (RCM) had warned that the Vale plant is endangering the coral reefs in the area.