'Lorry owners should sue LC over transport subsidy'

Labuan: Lorry owners should sue the Labuan Corporation (LC) if feel that they had been "misled" about the promised transport subsidy resulting in them now incurring RM2 million losses.DAP spokesman here, Lau Seng Kiat sympathised with the lorry operators saying: "RM2 million as claimed by the operators was a huge amount and the victims should seek legal advice and institute court action."

Lau added that there could be valid grounds because based on records, LC had agreed to extend the 50 per cent ro-ro fare subsidy which expired end of last year with the Federal Territory Ministry's Secretary-General Datuk Seri Adnan Md Ikshan saying that the ministry was fine-tuning to improve the subsidy payments and prevent abuse."

The hope was further strengthened when the Prime Minister, when launching the new market here in February, had also announced that the government would continue the subsidy which may cost RM15 million.

It was also announced under budget 2015 that RM262 million was allocated to finance the transportation costs and price control and stabilisation of essential goods.

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"It was therefore generally presumed that the allocation would also include the continuation of the ferry fare subsidy incurred by lorry owners," remarked Lau.

The 50 per cent discount ro-ro ferry fare subsidy was first tabled under Budget 2013 and the Ministry was allocated RM17.5 million for the purpose.

Under the scheme, all lorries bringing goods to Labuan from the mainland on ro-ro ferries would only have to pay 50 per cent of the fare and the same applied to passenger travel.

End of last year the LC, however, abruptly announced that the subsidy period had expired as the funds had been used up and a notice to this effect was put up at the ferry terminal. Following an uproar, the notice was quickly withdrawn and this gave rise to confusion.

A representative of the lorry owners, Wong Thiam Phin, was reported saying last week that they had meeting with LC on June 26 and was told that the subsidy expired end of last year and had not been extended, resulting in the 30 operators claiming that they were now faced with a loss of RM2 million in unpaid subsidies.

The operators warned that under the circumstances, they would have to reinstate their normal charges and Labuan would have to bear another 30 per cent more for goods transported from the mainland to Labuan.

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Lau hoped that it was still not too late to come to an amicable solution to solve the problem considering that the government had promised that GST collected would be paid back to the people through benefits.

He further said that the BN government had always spoken of its ability to fulfill its promises and as such, he was hopeful that the government would not let the people down in this case.

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