IS Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong going to continue to defend his failed cabotage policy, despite admissions by another ministry, Lim Guan Eng said.

The DAP leader and Bagan MP said the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia had told Parliament that multinational companies were bypassing Malaysia because of Wee’s cabotage policy.

This, according to Lim, has caused Malaysia to lose some RM12-RM15 billion in foreign investments.

“Now the communications minister has openly repudiated Wee as wrong. Will either one of the ministers resign?

“More important, who is telling the truth and guilty of misleading Parliament when both contradictory replies are made in Parliament?” said the DAP secretary-general in a statement today.

According to Lim, Ministry of Communications and Multimedia told Parliament on October 5 that Facebook and Google had decided to bypass Malaysia in the 12,000km-long Apricot submarine cable project because Malaysia had not finalised its cabotage policy.

Apricot will connect Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia but will bypass Malaysia.

However, on September 30, Wee told Parliament that these multinationals bypassed Malaysia because of the US-China trade wars and not because of his cabotage policy.

In 2018, then transport minister Anthony Loke had given an exemption for foreign undersea cable repair vessels to operate in Malaysian waters.

According to Loke, the time (average 27 days) taken to get a domestic shipping licence (DSL) was too long and had caused unnecessary disruption to internet connections.

As such, the government decided to exempt vessels carrying out repairs.

However, when Wee came into office in 2020, he reversed the decision, noting that there were local companies that could do the job and Malaysia should not need to rely on foreign vessels.

However, Wee’s decision, resulted in a backlash from foreign companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon as well as local telecommunications companies.

The Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Communications and Malaysia Digital Economy Cooperation (MDEC) also complained that the decision had caused Malaysia to lose investments.

Nevertheless, Wee stood by his decision and although the cabinet was supposed to decide on the cabotage issue in April, nothing materialised.

Since then, Wee has also changed his argument to say that the Transport Ministry has shortened the time needed to obtain a DSL to three days and has since given 10 DSLs to foreign vessels to repair submarine cables in Malaysian waters.

In the latest update, Wee told Parliament that the cabinet will decide on the cabotage issue in yesterday’s meeting, but the Ministry of Transport has yet to make any announcement on the matter. – October 9, 2021.