More than 500 fishermen and trawler boat operators have gone on strike and refused to go out to sea at the Fisheries Development Authority (LKIM) complex in Kuantan to demand that the government reconsider giving them super subsidy diesel.

Kuantan Fisheries Association chairperson Chia Hee Juak said the fishermen and operators were incurring the burden of buying diesel at RM1.80 a litre, while their catch from the sea did not commensurate with the cost they had to bear.

“In addition they have to pay the monthly instalment on the trawler vessels and the dragnet costing between RM500,000 and RM1 million,” he said when met in Kuantan today.

He said the strike would be carried for three days from today and would continue if there was no immediate action from the authorities concerned.

A trawler boat operator, Hing Hua Kow, said some of them were already planning to sell off their boats as they could not afford to bear big losses.  

The government had earlier decided that the operators of C2 fishing trawlers were required to purchase diesel at a price of RM1.80 a litre and not at the super subsidised price of RM1.25 a litre, which they were earlier eligible for.

- Bernama