THE Sarawak cabinet has directed Infrastructure and Port Development Minister Douglas Uggah Embas to continue pursuing the takeover of Bintulu Port with the transport minister.

Uggah, who is also a deputy premier, told staff and guests at his ministry’s Chinese New Year gathering in Kuching last night that Premier Abang Johari Openg gave the directive during the monthly cabinet meeting yesterday.

The state’s desire to take over the port, which started operation in 1983, is not new.

Uggah’s predecessor, the late James Jemut Masing, had in 2019 been given a similar cabinet directive to initiate a move on the takeover.

Under the agreement in forming Malaysia, all ports in Sarawak are to come under the control of the state government.

Bintulu Port, an important import and export gateway for Sarawak and East Malaysia’s largest container port and the nation’s sole liquefied natural gas (LNG) export gateway, was an exception.

As the facility is a key component to the LNG plant, it became a federal-managed port under an act of parliament.

To funnel some of the exports away from Bintulu Port, the state built another port at the Samalaju Industrial Park for the export of products manufactured in the industrial area such as aluminium, pulp and paper, silicon, manganese and fertiliser.

Even though Transport Minister Anthony Loke had said the federal government is ready to discuss with the Sarawak government regarding the state’s desire to take over the port, Uggah said the challenge that awaits him is “no small task”.

When he was the transport minister in 2019, Loke had brushed aside any suggestion of a takeover.

Uggah said his first task will be to study the Port Authorities Ordinance 1961.

He also disclosed that the state will be tabling a bill in the state legislative assembly at its year-end budget meeting to centralise the management of all the ports in the state.

“The state government wants Bintulu Port to be part of the cluster of state ports under a central authority,” he said. – February 3, 2023.