PAYING A FEE FOR TERRIBLE TOILETS AT MENUMBOK FERRY TERMINAL

LABUAN: The Sabah Ports and Harbours Department should scrap the RM1.50 domestic passenger charge on passengers leaving Menumbok to Labuan via the water taxis or ro-ro ferries unless the department could provide acceptable standard facilities at the Menumbok departure terminal.

MIC Chairman Ramasamy Rengasamy, who spent half an hour last Monday from 5pm waiting for a water taxi, said:

"The terminal was stinking because the two toilet doors were open and the stench was because both the toilets had dry taps.

"Passengers using the toilets depended on rainwater collected in drums to wash and this definitely was not good enough. It was nauseous, so why should passengers be asked to pay for use of the terminal and inhale stink?" he asked.

The department began charging the amount after the terminal was opened in 2007. Daily a few hundred people use the terminal, especially those passengers waiting for the water taxi.

However, even the ro-ro ferry passengers were also charged the same fee though most of them did not use the terminal but waited for the ferry in the vehicle.

Another nuisance about the charge is that while a passenger needs to buy his boarding pass at the ferry counter, the domestic passenger charge has to be paid at another counter in the terminal.

The department had imposed the charge under the Ports and Harbours Enactment 2002, Ports and Harbours (Government Wharves) Regulations 2008. In Labuan, there is no such charge on passengers levied by the Federal Marine Department.

Ramasamy said the water shortage was regular in Menumbok.

He spoke to one stall owner and was told that not only the terminal regularly had no piped water supply but most of the premises in the area, including schools.

He said the residents handled the problem by pumping water from wells and storing it in drums.

"There was a huge water reserve tank in Menumbok, but I am told it was usually dry and only filled up when a Minister or VIP was due to visit Menumbok," said Ramasamy.

Recently, Sabah Infrastructure Development Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan told the State Assembly that RM6 million would be spent to upgrade facilities at the Menumbok ferry terminal.

The project is to take off. - Sabahkini