Kedah MB rebuts claims he went on 4WD jaunt while Covid-19 spiked

 

Kedah Menteri Besar has slammed critics for accusing him of going on a 4WD adventure drive while Covid-19 cases surged in the northern state.

Muhammad Sanusi said he was not on a leisure trip but had visited the Ulu Muda Forest Reserve to monitor the management of logging there which had been approved by the previous government.

The three-day trip, he said, was to check on the impact of logging on water catchment areas because the Ulu Muda reserve supplies water to Kedah, Penang and Perlis, he said.

“We have our own duties to be fulfilled. People ask why I went into the jungle when Covid-19 cases are increasing (in Kedah).

“But I am not a doctor. There is already the Health Ministry, state Health Department and other agencies for this while I was doing my job.

“I don’t step into other people’s lanes. I have a lot of work as it is,” he said at a press conference after chairing a state exco meeting at Wisma Darul Aman in Alor Setar today.

Kedah has consistently recorded more than 100 Covid-19 cases daily in the past week, driven mostly by the Tembok cluster which was detected in the Alor Setar Prison.

The cluster, discovered when a prison staff member died suddenly, now has 1,047 cases, mostly involving inmates.

Mohammad Sanusi said from his trip to Ulu Muda, he found that the buffer zone for logging close to water sources needed to be expanded to stop river sedimentation.

He said this was to ensure that the water pumped there by the water processing plants was not affected.

“When the water is murky, it will cost more for the operator to process and more chemicals need to be used. If the water is too murky, it cannot be processed and intake from the river cannot be done. This will cause water supply cuts to households,” he said.

As such, he said, he has instructed the state Forestry Department to expand the logging buffer zone to 60 metres on either side of the bank. No logging is allowed in the buffer zone.

He said checks also found that protected tree species, like the tualang, are being logged indiscriminately, breaching regulations. Tualang trees are protected because they are a habitat for bees.

To circumvent fines, he said, loggers were declaring tualang logs as other inferior species, representing not only a loss of habitat for bees but also a loss of income for the government who will not be able to collect duties due for the valuable logs.

He said a similar fraud was being done for other valuable species like cengal which are declared as something else in order to escape paying higher duties.

The MB also urged the Forestry Department to come up with a way to sell off logs seized for breaching regulations. At present, these logs are destroyed either by burying or burning them or they are left to rot.

This, he said, was a loss for the state government who will not be able to collect duties on these logs.

“The logging companies should be fined but the logs can still generate an income for the government.

“I have advised the Foresty Department to find a way to overcome this through either a tender or an auction,” he said.

It was previously reported that the Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP) said it would support Kedah’s claim of RM100 million from the federal government to fully conserve the 160,000-hectare Ulu Muda Forest Reserve permanently.

This includes categorising and legally protecting the 16,000 hectares of the rainforest as a water catchment forest under Section 10(A)(1) of the National Forestry Act 1984.

Besides being a water catchment area, the Ulu Muda Forest is also home to some 50 protected wildlife species including the Malayan tiger, tapir and elephant. - Mkini