Concerns over 'no plastic' drive funds
Published on: Thursday, September 01, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: Concerns have been raised among city dwellers over the whereabouts of monies collected by several outlets from customers on no plastic days every week had gone. This comes on the heels of a pending police investigation over the report lodged by the Sabah Environment Protection Association (Sepa) in 2015, alleging funds amounting to hundreds of thousands of ringgit had gone missing from the Bring Your Own Bag Initiative trust fund. It could not be ascertained whether the campaign had been temporarily halted by the supporting Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry since then.
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But the campaign which runs every Saturday, Sunday and Monday since 2011 is still being continued by several stores, some Netizens claimed. A question raised by netizen, Daniel Doughty, to Sepa over the BYOB received an interesting response. "As far as we know, the 20 sen collection has been officially stopped by the Minister and City Hall," Sepa said. It added: "EAC is no longer operational and many questions have not been answered by the ministry."
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Doughty had earlier raised concerns over the charges imposed by a convenience store with a notice indicating the BYOB campaign. The BYOB campaign is strongly supported by City Hall, as well as the Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai. The Daily Express also learnt these outlets are also charging customers 20 sen, but when approached, a spokesperson from its parent company in Kuala Lumpur responded that it was only adhering to the directive of the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Ministry under the 'No Plastic Day' campaign.
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The ministry's office here, when contacted earlier, said they were unaware whether the campaign was launched in Sabah but later clarified the ministry only monitored the campaign launched in Peninsular Malaysia. "For Sabah we are not sure under which government department the programme is being monitored. It's a voluntary effort," said the ministry's State Director, Yahya Sulaiman. But, according to the company's spokesperson, it has received guidelines on the implementation of the 'No Plastic Day'. "We have complied with the guidelines since they were issued by the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Ministry back on Jan 3, 2011," she said."These guidelines are still in effect in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah until such a time as new guidelines are received."She said monies collected for plastic bags were under the purview of the Ministry.A ground check by the Daily Express on the implementation of the 'No Plastic Day' showed the company did not install a banner over the said campaign and the charges of the plastic bags were only declared over the counter and not punched on the receipt. Managerial staff, when approached over the collection of the monies, revealed that an officer said to be from the headquarters would come to the outlets to conduct an audit on the excess cash sales, which are said to be banked-in into the company's headquarters account. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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