KUCHING: Dayak Transformation Association (Trada) has called on the Malaysian government to focus its attention on equipping frontliners and enforcement personnel with resources and policies that can help them perform better while safeguarding their lives.
The youth and community advocacy group made this statement yesterday in conjunction with the upcoming Warrior’s Day or Hari Pahlawan on July 31.
“The sacrifice made by our heroes in the past and the present is immeasurable,” said Trada founder and President Joseph Janting.
“We are also thankful to those who are working hard and dedicatedly in the face of this unprecedented global health crisis to safeguard our lives and protect our nation’s interest.
“As Malaysian citizens, we can play our part in honouring these modern-day heroes by supporting the government in efforts to provide them with the necessary resources, while implementing laws and policies that can help them do their job better and safer,” he added.
According to him, those who are tasked to protect the nation’s borders, including the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Customs Department, and the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF), were constantly faced with attempts by criminal organisations to smuggle people and illegal products into the country.
He said that products such as illegal cigarettes were especially concerning to Trada, noting that in Sabah and Sarawak, eight out of 10 cigarettes sold were illegal cigarettes ⎼⎼ the highest rate in Malaysia.
Janting said that this not only generated various socioeconomic problems but also harmed youths, who were susceptible to the negative elements that this black market created.
“Our enforcement agencies have been hard at work to tackle this illegal cigarette trade. Trada is especially encouraged to hear the Sarawak Customs Department’s success in seizing 70.96 million sticks of illegal cigarettes worth approximately RM6.3mil at Bintulu Port recently.
“However, there are 12.2 billion illegal sticks of cigarettes estimated to be sold and consumed in Malaysia in 2019 alone. Clearly, the sheer volume of this problem will overwhelm any enforcement agency,” he said.
He said that in addition to providing the necessary funds to recruit more manpower and deploy state-of-the-art technologies to assist enforcement officers, the government could also look at addressing the root cause of the problem ̶⎼ the large gap in price between legitimate and illegal cigarettes.
He said that household incomes in Sabah and Sarawak fell behind the national average and most had no choice but to turn to cheaper black market products which are smuggled in via land or sea.
“Clever policies and tax reforms can help dissuade smugglers and perpetrators of the black market nationwide, bringing down the threat level for our enforcement frontliners when they perform their duties,” said Janting.
