Labuan Chamber hands PM memo
Published on: Sunday, February 14, 2016
Labuan: The Labuan Chinese Chamber of Commerce (LCCC) want Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to direct the Labuan Land Office to establish more land reserves and create access to land "locked" areas in the island's interior."Such a proactive action by the Land Office could open up huge new areas of land for commercial and other developments which are now lying idle and unusable since there is no access road to these lands," LCCC Chairman Datuk Wong Kii Yii (pic) said.The proposal was among several others in a multi-points memorandum presented to the Prime Minister during his recent visit here. The handover was witnessed by Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor and Member of Parliament Datuk Rozman Isli.ADVERTISEMENT Wong noted that due to these lands not being utilised, there was shortage of land available for development. This caused land with road access and along highways to sky-rocket in prices. The trend could be arrested with the opening up of more land," said Wong. The Chamber also suggested that the Director of Land Office or any other be delegated the power in handling and approving land transfers and other straight forward cases without the need to go through the Labuan Land Executive Committee (Land Exec) which is headed by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Hanisa.Wong said current procedures resulted in delays in approval of land matters and this hindered local development.ADVERTISEMENT Other issues highlighted in the memorandum included:- Water: The Chamber wanted the PM's Office to intervene and resolve the high water tariff rate which was affecting many businesses as well as households.
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It said the exorbitant rates made it difficult for Labuan to compete with Sabah and Sarawak in luring investors and added to the difficulties of all here who were already burdened by the high cost of living.A point made was that due to the high cost of water, many supply and other vessels preferred sourcing supplies elsewhere.Since the new tariff was implemented last August on an upscale method instead of a flat rate, many found a tremendous increase in their water bills. After several meetings with the Labuan Water Department it was agreed that a review be made within three months. But no action seems to have been taken even after five months.- IWK: It urged the Government to have Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) establish a full operations office here complete with technical and engineering staff. The present office here had no authority in approving technical drawings submitted by developers and approval from KL took a long time. This resulted in delays and inconvenience.- Port: It called to speed-up the setting up of a new container port since the present one was unable to undertake the project, the Chamber be given approval to implement it on a joint venture basis with other parties. The port has been managed by Labuan Liberty Port Management Sdn Bhd since 1988. A new port was proposed under the 9th Malaysia Plan but made little headway over the years. Under the 11th MP there is a proposal that a Port Authority, as a regulatory body, take control and that the Bintulu Port Authority extend its operations here.- Workers: The Chamber also wanted the Government to accord the same rights as KL and Putrajaya to import foreign workers from other countries apart from Indonesia and Philippines. The chamber wants an important role in the matter.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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- Schools: The Chamber asked for fixed annual allocations to assist the development and upkeep off National Type Primary Schools. It said the schools not only served the Chinese community as reflected by the racial composition of the two primary schools here. It said the Chi Wen school had about 52 per cent non-Chinese pupils while the other Chung Hwa about 30 per cent.Other points in the memorandum stressed on the need to upgrade the hospital and CIQ facilities at the airport to attract chartered flights.