Lucia Lai
Teresa Kok, Selangor Senior State Exco, came out with some figures and facts on the sand-mining issue in response to accusations by MCA leader, Chua Tee Yong.
In The Star, dated 21 May 2012, Chua accused the Selangor government of not managing the state well, pointing out the sand mining issue, among others.
In a press statement, dated 23 May, Teresa Kok said that for the past four years, the State government has managed the issue of sand mining with great success and integrity.
“This pre-elections tactic and baseless witch-hunt from MCA is purely an exercise to wrongfully discredit the Pakatan Rakyat state administration without any factual foundation.”
She produced a documented statistics on the sand mining issue and said. “Figures made available by Kumpulan Semesta Sdn. Bhd. (KSSB), the government-administered company that manages sand mining in Selangor, shows a sale profit of over RM84 million for the year 2011 alone.
“Moreover, from the time Pakatan Rakyat took over the state in 2008 to date, the total figure of profit from the sale of sand has been in the excess of RM180 million. This has surpassed the collective targeted or projected figure of RM150 million set by Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim.”
This sum, she said clearly shows the figure is much higher than as what was claimed by Chee in The Star. Therefore she hope that MCA leaders will check their facts properly before making unsubstantiated allegations.
She stated that KSSB, with the intervention of the various Selangor District Land Offices in clamping down sand-theft, has been successful in using meticulous security and monitoring mechanisms to reduce the theft. Furthermore, they have been able to recover profit losses by ensuring that operating companies pays sand-taxes.
“These exercises have resulted in the increase of revenue, which the Selangor government has used for the benefit of the rakyat through social programmes in the state.” she said.
“These social outreach activities, which use part of the profits from sand-mining activities, introduced in the Program Merakyatkan Ekonomi Selangor (MES), have brought much financial assistance to the needy communities in Selangor.
She hope that MCA will stop its ‘below the belt and unsubstantiated statements’ against the Selangor government. Instead she wants MCA to focus its energy on cleaning up the on-going corrupt practices in the federal government of which they are a member coalition.
*Below is an attached chart on sand-mining statistics in Selangor based on Metric Tonne (MT).
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