‘Minister is clueless, twisting facts’

A Sabah-based NGO has described the EIAs submitted on the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) project in Lahad Datu as 'an academic green-wash'.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Environmental Protection Association (Sepa) has denounced State Industrial Development Minister Raymond Tan Shu Kiah for tarring the NGO as saboteurs for exposing environmental and ecological damage to the state.

“Sepa is of the opinion that the minister is so blinded by emotion that he is driven to twisting facts,” said Sepa president Wong Tack.

“The content of his statement shows his gross ignorance which is mainly because he has chosen to make an evaluation without a thorough site visit of the places Sepa has reported on,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Wong was commenting on the outburst by Tan who accused Sepa of endangering the state’s economic growth by “constantly objecting” to a number of big government-endorsed projects that have been proven to have flouted environmental laws.

Local newspapers quoted him as telling reporters during a Deepavali function here: “I won’t say they are sabotaging… but if thiscontinues, it is very, very close to what I would say sabotage.”

Tan was referring to the embarrassing exposé by Sepa that part of the state government’s grand Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) project, which is on-going in Lahad Datu, was clearly against the law.

On Tan’s claim that a gas pipeline at the site and the building of an electricity generating plant would go ahead as they complied with all the environmental safeguards, Wong said the minister did not appear to be aware of what was going on at the site.

“He should make his appraisal based on hard facts and not make sweeping statements,” he said.

“Sepa is not against the gas-fired power plant in Lahad Datu. All Sepa wants is that proper procedures be followed so as to avoid irreparable environmental damage. The means must justify the end.

“Let Tan be reminded that the first requirement of Sabah’s EIA laws is that the site chosen must be the right one and cannot bechosen if it negatively affects the environment, unless as a last resort, and even then, only if the effects can be mitigated,” he said.

Sepa has been highlighting how several projects carried out by the government are not given proper on-the-ground procedural importance.

It claims that contractors carrying out government projects act like they have the “licence to kill the environment” and the NGO has proved it by providing photographic evidence.

Lax enforcement

Sepa argued that it is the duty of the government to monitor and enforce the laws but since the projects are government-sanctioned, enforcement has been lax.

“NGOs like Sepa are actually helping the government by pointing out the problems for the government to act and  Tan should thank NGOs like Sepa and not shoot the messenger,” said Wong.

He also said Tan was being peevish for criticising Sepa for opposing coal-fired power plants in the peninsula, adding that it only revealed “a large gap in the minister’s thinking”.

“Tan has taken credit for the cancellation of the coal-fired power plant in Sabah then. Going by his reasoning, he should get Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to close down all coal-fired power plants in Malaysia.”

Sepa has been complaining since 2009 of the lack of EIAs (Environmental Impact Assessment) master plan on the POIC. It claims that the EIAs submitted did not seek public and NGO input and were basically “an academic green-wash” as the panel memberswere all government servants and appointees.

“Do right by the people. Don’t bulldoze things because future generations will suffer the consequences,” said Wong.