AN employee of the developers of the Penang South Reclamation Project (PSR) has let the cat out of the bag: the job opportunities that the project would offer Penang folk being bandied about by the state government and the developers are mainly for the developers and their employees! A large majority of the investors setting up on the reclaimed land and their workers will foreigners, not Penang people, not even Malaysians! Is this the right direction to go for the long term, killing an important local food producing industry and livelihoods so that foreigners can make money?     

Jan Tan Yen Ping, a quantity surveyor at Gamuda, which is developing the PSR, is wondering whether she will have a career future in Penang if the project is cancelled (Malay Mail, July 26, 2021).

She can rest assured of a future, an even better one perhaps, without the PSR project, if an air-conditioned, carpeted office is not a prerequisite for work. Money and modern life style do not necessarily make for a better life.  

Obviously she thinks that the 5,000 fishermen who harvest nature-given fish in the Bay of Teluk Kumbar should give up their jobs so that air-conditioned factories and offices could be built on the artificial islands to provide jobs for young graduates like her and also, according to her, to the displaced fishermen to work in “safe” environments as compared to the “hazardous” fishing work in the sea.    

What about the families of the fishermen? What about the tens of thousands of people who depend daily on the seafood caught in the proposed 1,800ha reclamation area? Is it right to deprive people of their income and food source? 

Jan has probably been persuaded by her employer to believe that the Bay of Teluk Kumbar is merely a puddle of “shallow, muddy water” that is not worth preserving. It is easy to miseducate urban residents who have no first-hand knowledge of the valuable rural areas which supply food to the cities. 

The education system is also to blame for not teaching about the important, even critical, role  that rural areas play in the food-supply chain to sustain life besides preserving the natural environment. The system does not teach about sustainable life but about wealth creation and economic growth as if growth has no limits, and growth at what cost?   

Fishing is an industry at the Bay of Teluk Kumbar. Think of it as a huge food producing factory that spans an area of 4,500 acres and is so unique that it does not require input by humans of any raw materials or products that have to be sourced from some other place, as is the case with all other industries, and yet miraculously produces food every day to be harvested by anybody. Is this miracle of nature not precious enough to be preserved for posterity? Why such disdain for inshore fishing and the simple fishermen who do it, who don’t go about in suits and flashy cars? This “might is right” attitude has caused much – and in some cases, irreversible – damage –  to the planet.       

I would suggest that Jan spend a day in a fishing area (Sungai Batu near Teluk Kumbar is easily accessible) to see for herself the catch brought in by the fishing boats and to speak to the fishermen. Ask the fishermen if they are willing to give up the “dangerous” job of going out to sea to take up a “safe” job on land to be created on their fishing grounds. Ask herself whether tens of thousands of Penang people should be deprived of the fresh seafood being brought ashore by the fishermen daily.  

Many people have come to Penang to find a job. Jan, who has come back to Penang to work for Gamuda on the PSR project, could just as eailiy find other work to do if the project is cancelled, and if she is not choosy. She should remember the graduate in KL who has gone to Singapore to work as a garbage collector. – July 28, 2021.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.