Local fishermen in Kuala Penyu and Kimanis along the Sabah west coast want the sand mining activities in their area that extends to Pulau Tiga to be brought to a complete halt. Their dilemma is compounded by the various government agencies having different takes on their complaints with none seeming to provide any solution.

The Marine Department (MD) for example confirmed yesterday that the domestic shipping licence issued to a company for sand mining activities between the Pulau Tiga and Kimanis traditional fishing grounds is valid until this Oct 17.

“When the ship’s licence is valid, under normal circumstances, we do not have any authority to take action as they entered the area legally and occupied that particular area legally,” said MD director Abdul Aziz Muhamud. “We checked the licence of the foreign ship. It is valid.”

He was commenting on statements in the local media over the weekend by the Kuala Penyu Fishermen’s Association and the Papar Fishermen’s Association urging the authorities to act against sand mining activities in their traditional fishing grounds.

The MD, according to Abdul Aziz, carried out a three-day operation between Oct 12 and 14 at the traditional fishing grounds between Kuala Penyu and Kimanis. As far as the department was concerned, everything was in order so far as licences were concerned.

He did not dwell on complaints by the two fishermen’s associations that a company, based in a foreign country, is carrying out sand mining in their area despite the related Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report of 2007 having expired after two years.

The thrust of the complaints by the two associations is that the foreign company was engaged by another company carrying out reclamation works at the proposed Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal (SOGT) project site in Kimanis.

The Land and Survey Department (LSD) meanwhile said that the sand mining activities by the company should not start as they had not settled their Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL) fees and obtained a removal licence. A spokesperson confirmed that the LSD has approved the EIA Report and granted a TOL to the company concerned.

“They can occupy the area under the TOL but they can’t start sand mining activities until they settle the TOL fees and obtain a removal licence for the mined sand,” said the LSD spokesperson.

LSD admits illegal mining

Already, the LSD has acted against seven cases of illegal sand mining this year, eight last year and 16 in 2008. Equipment like barges, excavators and lorries, among others were seized by the LSD. This included cases where a TOL obtained for one area was used in another area that had not been approved for sand mining.

The Sabah Environment Department (SED) confirmed that the sand mining company concerned had an EIA approved for the duration of the sand mining activities. “The EIA can be granted till the projects are completed,” said SED director Yabi Yangkat. “It’s not true that the EIA is only valid for two years as claimed by the two fishermen’s associations.”

Yabi clarified that elsewhere the LSD handled the TOL approval procedures for sand mining, while the Fisheries Department is also involved in approving any such activity “as long as it does not affect the marine ecology”.

It was reliably learnt that there are quite a number of illegal sand extraction activities in the state. One reason appears to be the slow process in vetting TOL to extract sand or river stones.

Generally, the TOL approval process has been centralised at the LSD headquarters in Kota Kinabalu. However, the slow process may not be due to any weaknesses at the LSD headquarters but to the fact that a TOL application has to be referred to so many other agencies.

First, there’s the State River Sand and Stones Committee that has many technical departments reporting to it. The LSD has jurisdiction only to check on the land status and needs input from the other departments before taking an application through the TOL process.

Again, the cost of preparing an EIA has been estimated to be in the region of RM 40,000 to RM 50,000. Hence, when an EIA was rejected for any reason, the applicants tended to just go ahead and mine sand illegally, according to sources at the LSD.

Short on sand

The Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) has since written to the LSD complaining about the difficulty in obtaining sand locally and warning that this would drive the cost of building houses and other property in Sabah up.

Developers in Kota Kinabalu, according to a Shareda spokesperson, have to obtain sand from Sandakan, Keningau, Lahad Datu, Beluran and even Lawas, across the border in Sarawak.

One reason is that places like the Kinabatangan River is off limits for the purpose of sand mining activities. Another is that the LSD no longer allows hill-cutting.

Sabah’s terrain is generally mountainous and in the west coast has only very narrow strips of land along the coastlines.