Plantation Sector Contributes RM428 Million Tax Collected Last Year

The plantation sector is one the most important revenue earners for the state the Sarawak as last year, the sales taxed collected from the production of 3.4 million tonnes of crude palm oil was RM428million from the planted hectarage of 1.28 million hectares.

Minister of Land Development Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Jemut Masing said that, it is indeed is the policy of the government to give priority to locals for employment in this sector like any other sector. 

"In line with this policy, plantation owner have in fact, introduced include payment of incentives and the implementation of productivity-linked wage system to replace daily wages system and in addition, there are many other non-monetary incentives such as the provision of transport, insurance coverage, contribution to EPF, SOCSO, workmen compensation and other."

He said that, the department of Labour Sarawak is doing their best to ensure that the local job seekers are well informed of the availability of employment in plantations and among the initiatives undertaken by JTK were compulsory advertisement of vacancies in the local newspaper, announcement through radio and advertising those vacancies in Job Malaysia Portal.

"In addition to that, JTK have also conducted numerous Job Placement Programmes such as Job Fair and Job Carnival throughout Sarawak," added Masing.

He said this in his winding-up speech during the State Legislative Assembly Sitting at Petra Jaya, Kuching here today.

"As an effort to improve the remuneration for local and foreign workers, the government introduced the minimum wage policy on 1 January 2013 and despite all these efforts and initiatives, response from the locals remains lukewarm."

Masing said that, many local employed by the plantations are unable to comply with the regimented work schedule required in the industry. 

"Majority of our local people prefer to work on daily-rated basis especially in the maintenance activities but sadly, not many of our local worker are able to work the maximum number of working days in a month," he said adding that, in fact, many of them work only for 4 to 5 hours a day after which they will attend to their other activities.

"Such work culture is definitely nit suitable for plantation operation. No planters would want to employ workers who are not productive, and unable to follow work schedule set by the plantation, as this would severely disrupt their operation."

Pointing out that, the plantation sector is a labour intensive industry as March 2015 a total of 104,031 workers were employment in the sector and this number is well below the requirement of the sector, Masing added that, as a result, the sector suffers heavy losses through unharvested Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) that are left rotting in the field and contributing to a loss of revenue to the state.

"Taking Sarawak Land Custody and Rehabilitation Authority for example, out of the total 1,392 harvesters, only 41 are locals."

On maintenance works, Masing said that, only 1,046 out of 1,810 workers are local. Overall therefore, SALCRA is facing shortage of at least 1,287 workers.

"Given the choice, plantation houses of Sarawak would prefer to recruit locals rather than foreigners to work in their plantation. The rationale is simple. Contrary to the allegation that foreign labour is cheap, the recruitment of foreign worker is actually very costly."

"This is due to recruitment expenses that have to be incurred on top of costs for transport, accommodation and the need to recruit additional staff to manage them. All these add up to plantation cost."

"For example, in recruiting foreign workers, SALCRA has to pay RM2,935 per worker in respect of the following expenses; An estimated one-off recruitment fee – RM1,800.00 per worker if recruitment is done through third parties; Visit pass – RM60.00 per worker annually; Visa – RM15.00 per worker; Medical Examination – RM95.00 per worker annually; Documentation and processing fees – RM125 per worker annually; Bond and insurance – RM250 per worker annually and Levy – RM590 per worker annually."

He stressed that, the government does not take a compromising attitude in the recruitment of foreign workers and in this regard, the government is exercising due care with high sense of responsibility. 

"Applications for foreign worker have to go through stringent processes and produces such as detailed selection of those who seek employment in the state, medical screening, security vetting, and putting in place some restrictions on eligibility criteria for plantation owners, among others."

"The reality is that we need to employ foreign workers however, recruiting the general workers from our neighboring country is getting more difficult due to the robust development of the oil palm industry in that country."

"It is for this reason that the Malaysian Government signed an Amended Protocol Agreement with the Bangladesh Government in December 2014 to enable Sarawak to recruit plantation workers from Bangladesh and to diversity our source of origin."

"So far, the state government has not employment any Bangladesh workers in our plantation under the government-to-government arrangement," he said adding that, we still need to monitor the performance of those workers in Peninsular Malaysia and this goes to show that the State Government is very cautious and through in the recruitment of foreign workers.

"I have also personally talked to some smallholder about employment in their holdings but sadly I was informed that it is difficult for them to attract local worker," he added.

"Given the above scenario, if the NGOs really have the interest of the locals at heart, they should identify those locals who do want to work and comply with the regimented schedule of work in the plantations, they are strongly advised to give the details of these locals to the plantation owners."

"If indeed there are such locals, I am confident that the plantation owners will be willing to provide extra incentives to the local workers instead of spending this on employing foreign workers and this would go a along way to help the state reduce the losses and wastage in the oil palm industry."

"There have been reports on incident of theft of FFB in the state. This problem if allowed to go unchecked will not only tarnish the image of the state but will also affect investor confidence to invest in the industry. Among the root causes to the problem are NCR claims within the affected plantation, dissatisfactions on the returns from joint venture and the buying of stolen fruits by certain FFB dealer."

He disclosed that, various actions have been taken to curb these FFB theft as in July 2014, a joint operation known as “Ops Sawit Kenyalang” was conducted by various agencies such as Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Immigration Deparment, Polis Diraja Malaysia, Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, State Security Unit and State Attorney General Chambers. MPOB has also frozen the issuance of new FFB Dealers License.

"A quota of two metric tonne per hectare per month has also been imposed to limit the sale of FFB allowed for a smallholder," he said adding that, this is to prevent smallholders from selling excessive volume of FFB which may have been stolen from affected plantation.

"In addition, palm oil mills and FFB dealer are required to submit monthly the list of their FFB sellers to MPOB for purpose of monitoring."

"The state government is taking this issue very seriously. Some of the cases have been decided by the courts which do not favor the NCR land claimants. Despite this, the thefts have not stopped. Thus I call on the relevant enforcement agencies to enforce the court ruling against those who are in contempt of court decision," he added. - Sarawakiana