TRANSPORT minister Wee Ka Siong said that he will explain the cabotage issue in detail during his debate session with Lim Guan Eng after Budget 2022 is tabled on October 29.

Wee also took to Facebook to respond to the motion filed by Lim to refer him to Parliament’s Rights and Privileges Committee for a statement he made on September 30 that the Bagan MP said has misled the House.

In a letter to Dewan Rakyat Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun, the Ayer Hitam MP said the Communications and Multimedia Minister Annuar Musa and him have provided a written explanation in response to the motion.

“I am sure YB Bagan and YB Bukit Mertajam have received a copy of the same letter sent by the Dewan Rakyat Speaker,” he said while referring to the letter he had attached.

“I am waiting for YB Lim Guan Eng, let’s debate when free!” he said.

Azhar had ordered Wee to explain the cabotage policy after he was accused by Lim of misleading the House on the matter.

“The statement is seen as contradicting the written reply provided by the Ketereh MP (Annuar Musa), who is also the communications and multimedia minister, to the Bukit Mertajam MP (Steven Sim) on October 5,” Azhar said in a letter.

Wee was told to submit documents or proof to support his statement.

Lim said while filing the motion on October 11 that Wee had misled the House when he was questioned on whether there was truth to former Multimedia Development Corporation chairman Dr Rais Hussin’s claim that the decision to revoke the cabotage policy had led to a loss of undersea cable projects that could have brought foreign investments in worth up to RM15 billion.

Quoting Wee, Lim said the MCA president had dismissed the claim saying that the cabotage policy only applied to repair and not installation work.

However, Annuar said in a written reply on October 5 that the cabotage policy had caused Malaysia to be passed over by Facebook and Google for the Apricot sub-sea cables installation project.

Cabotage is the right to operate sea, air, or other transport services, within a particular territory. Cabotage policies can restrict the rights to operate these services into a country to that country’s own transport services. – October 14, 2021.