Billion-ringgit Pitas shrimp project to be reviewed, says minister

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Christina Liew voices concern about the environmental impact and difficulties suffered by indigenous communities due to the project.

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Christina Liew. (Facebook pic)

KOTA KINABALU: The state tourism, culture and environment ministry will prepare a state Cabinet paper on the billion-ringgit shrimp project in Sabah’s northern district of Pitas.

Minister Christina Liew said the ministry had received a complaint from six villages in the area which said their livelihoods had been severely affected since the project took off in 2014.

She said the Sabah Environment Protection Association (Sepa) had also raised concerns about the environmental impact on the area after 920ha of mangroves were destroyed to make way for the shrimp ponds.

“I will instruct the ministry’s permanent secretary to come up with a comprehensive report on the project to be presented to the Cabinet for discussion,” she told reporters after meeting Sepa representatives at her office yesterday.

Liew said she was also told of a letter of protest written by the affected villagers, and their plea to save another 400ha from being developed for the project. She added that she had asked for details from Sepa.

“We will see if some kind of solution can be found to remedy the situation.”

She said the project was a joint venture between the Sabah Foundation and a private company based in Perak.

Villagers had complained to Sepa of a marked decrease in the number of crabs and fish caught. They said the removal of the mangroves also caused sea water to rise two metres higher during high tide.

Sepa president Lanash Thanda said this was to be expected as the destruction of the mangroves had also led to the closure of several tributaries which helped keep the water level lower in the past.

She said the mangrove swamp system had been badly damaged.

“The villagers there depend heavily on the mangroves for their livelihood, and have banded together to protect this last piece of mangrove swamp,” she said.

She said the villagers were hoping the state government would consider declaring the remaining 400ha of mangroves as Native Customary Rights (NCR) land to ensure it will not be taken away from the community.

The aquaculture shrimp project is part of the previous state government’s plan to turn Sabah into the nation’s number one shrimp producer, contributing RM3 billion to the state’s coffers by 2020.

The Pitas shrimp project received an investment of RM963.64 million from a private company on 2,200ha of land. It is expected to build a major plant to process the shrimps from the ponds.

The project was expected to create 3,000 jobs to benefit the local population.

However, problems arose after the company responsible for the project bulldozed its way into the area without a proper Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in 2013.

The company was fined and issued a stop-work order. The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) gave the project the green light at the end of 2014.

Since the project took off, the indigenous community there has complained about polluted waters and a reduced catch. The promise of thousands of jobs has not materialised, either.

The project was supposed to build 1,500 shrimp ponds on 2,160ha of land, including the 400ha the villagers are trying to protect.

It is a government initiative through a state subsidiary company, Inno Fisheries, in collaboration with Sunlight Seafood (Sabah) Sdn Bhd. - FMT