THE condition that rare earths producer Lynas export waste from its plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, is not a cabinet decision, Entrepreneur Development Minister Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof said today.

He said it could have been Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin’s opinion and she should take responsibility for her statement, as the cabinet’s decision to allow Lynas to continue operating was clear, while waste was a separate matter from the plant’s operations.

“I don’t know if it’s her personal opinion but the cabinet has yet to make a firm decision. She (Yeo) has to take responsibility for her statement.

“To take the waste back to Australia, that is not a decision by the cabinet, it was a suggestion,” Redzuan told reporters in the Parliament lobby today.

Redzuan said Lynas Corp Ltd’s investment in its Malaysia plant was “too big to ignore” and the cabinet would not force the Australian miner to export waste from the plant unless it was scientifically proven unsafe.

“If the committee thinks that it (the waste) is unsafe then we have to shut it down.

“But as it is now there is no indication, as far as I know, that the plant is unsafe, other than a suggestion that the waste should be taken back.

“We are a government that is friendly to business, so we have to come out with measures to manage waste. 

“You have an agreement to allow investors to come into this country previously, therefore, we have to manage it, we cannot just force someone to take back the waste, that was not the condition in the contract,” Redzuan added.

The US$800-million Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) began operations in 2012.

Its latest three-year operating license is up for renewal, and Yeo’s ministry had wanted it to export waste out of Malaysia . 

Yeo was banking on a 2012 letter by Lynas to the Atomic Energy Licensing Board stating the company’s agreement to remove from Malaysia waste generated by LAMP.

A review committee appointed by Yeo’s ministry to assess LAMP ahead of its license renewal last year found that the plant qualified for an extension of license as it had complied with all conditions.

The committee had recommended the building of a permanent disposal facility for the waste residues and only proposed export of the waste if such a facility was not possible.

The committee also recently clarified that it only recommended further studies on groundwater in the area where the plant operators and did not suggest that there had been any increase in the concentration of heavy metals in the groundwater.

Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh, who has opposed the LAMP from its beginning, said that while she welcomed foreign direct investment, Lynas was too dangerous to the people living around it because of the waste it generated. She also claimed that the groundwater in the area had been contaminated by heavy metals. – April 1, 2019.