Harris: Sabah misled into ceding Labuan

KOTA KINABALU: Former Sabah chief minister Harris Salleh has expressed regret for ceding Labuan to the federal government in 1984.

“We were misled,” he said, agreeing with critics who have accused the federal government of failing to develop the island to the level it promised more than 30 years ago.

He said he agreed to the proposal to turn Labuan into a federal territory mainly because the Mahathir Mohamad administration promised to spend money to develop the island to its full potential.

“I regret handing over Labuan to the federal government, to be honest with you,” he told FMT in a recent interview.

“It was said the ministers would visit the island more often and that would mean more funds for us. That was what it was supposed to be. That’s the main reason I did it.

“But all that failed. We were misled. It was quite wrong to hand it over, but the decision was based on facts presented to us.”

He pointed that his government did set up the methanol, gas, shipyard and flour mill industries in Labuan, but he said the island could have become a worthy rival of Singapore if the federal government had not been half-hearted in developing it.

“The water surrounding Labuan is deep and even 500,000-tonne cargo ships can call at the port there,” he said. “They could have turned Labuan into a little Singapore, but all their plans went wrong.

“There is no more oil (industries) in Labuan now while Brunei is building a very big supply base in Muara, costing some RM25 billion. They are building a city there.

“Who wants to invest in Labuan now? All things are done halfway.

“In a nutshell, the federal government failed in Labuan.

“They built this and that and they felt they had done their job. They felt so proud of it. But look at the Labuan financial centre. It’s empty.” -FMT