KUCHING: A number of Democratic Action Party (DAP) legislators and leaders from Sarawak including Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Deputy Minister Chong Chieng Jen, Kuching MP Kelvin Yii, Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong and former Stampin MP Dr Julian Tan recently went to Parliament to meet the Minister of Defence Mohamad Sabu to follow up on and discuss issues concerning Sarawak maritime borders and efforts to secure the release of Malaysian fishing boats currently detained by Indonesia.
Two of the boats are fishing vessels are from Sarawak bearing registration numbers QKH9393z and SF1-2929. These boats were said to have encroached into Indonesian waters even though the coordinates at the point of arrest were said to be within Malaysian waters.
In a press statement issued today, DAP Sarawak said efforts to resolve this issue would require the efforts of multiple ministries including the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Agriculture and also Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This meeting was a further follow-up to the previous ones held with other ministers to push for the quick release of the boats as well as to find a proper long-term solution to the disputed waters between Malaysia and Indonesia which has affected not just the individual fishermen, but also the whole fishing industry.
“Actually, the Malaysian and Indonesian governments had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on November 2017 in Kuching stating that any fisherman caught will be released swiftly as the majority of the encroachment cases were unintentional due to the confusion over the maritime borders,” DAP continued.
Both countries had agreed that most of the fishermen involved are those from the lower socio-economic group that fully rely on fishing to earn their living.
In the meeting, the minister was asked to expedite the negotiations including urging the Indonesian authorities to respect the terms and conditions of the government-to-government MoU.
The minister was also asked to increase maritime security, especially along the borders, not just to guard against national threat or even terrorists, but also to guard against foreign fishing vessels that enter the country’s waters to fish.
The DAP delegation was informed that the country loses up to RM 7-billion worth of fish and other maritime resources annually due to the encroachment of foreign fishing vessels. Many of these vessels are from Vietnam with some from Indonesia.
They were also informed that the Ministry of Defence is doing all it can to increase security along the maritime borders and it has requested RM200 million more under the Supplementary Budget Bill to purchase more assets to better guard the borders.
The current assets have not been maintained properly and are inefficient to handle the growing number of issues nowadays.
