PLANTATION Industries and Commodities Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin courted public scorn and online jeering after claiming lions exist in Malaysia and orang utan would kill humans first if met in the jungle.

Zuraida set Twitter alight today, when it was revealed that at an event on January 5, she said the primates would kill humans first, while humans would not kill orang utans.

“I was talking to our ambassador in Mecca and he told me that in the schools his students attended, the books were painting our palm oil industry in a bad light because we kill orang utans.

“In Malaysia, if you see an orang utan, they will kill you first, you won’t kill them first. Right?” the minister was seen in a video clip as saying.

The former PKR MP who defected to Bersatu after the Sheraton Move went on to explain that there were procedures when dealing with wildlife in the jungle before adding that there are lions in Malaysia.

“Perhilitan has its policies. Do you think they simply go and kill orang utans?

“Even lions and tigers, when they see them, they don’t kill. They have a procedure to phase them and then take them to the zoo or whatever.”

PKR strongman Rafizi Ramli cynically said that his teachers in school had been lying about orang utans and lions.

The former MP added that we could learn a lot from a minister.

Lembah Pantai MP and fellow party member Fahmi Fadzil branded Zuraida’s statement as mind boggling.

“It goes from bad to worse. My god,” he tweeted before adding another tweet that sayid: “This minister is great. Really great! Orangutans will kill you first. Malaysia has a ‘lion’!!”

Another PKR MP, Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin, took his former political colleague to task, asking if anyone had imported lions into Malaysian jungle.

“I can definitely confirm there are no lions in the jungles of southeast Asia. Unless it somehow has been imported last night.”

Environmental conservation organisation Zoologi Malaysia said Zuraida should watch more documentaries about the orang utan.

“We hope the plantation industries and commodities minister will watch a documentary about our national treasure: orangutans.”

Meanwhile, Zuraida’s predecessor Teresa Kok responded by urging the Ampang MP to speed up the green conservation projects under the Malaysian Palm Oil Council as a strategy to counter various false accusations spread by foreign countries against palm oil.

“I hope the experience Zuraida has had in Arab countries will make her understand and adopt my earlier formulated policy of halting and capping the expansion of oil palm plantations in Malaysia and utilise the palm oil industry’s generous cess fund under the Malaysian Palm Oil Green Conservation Fund (MPOGCF) to replant forest trees and carrying out other green conservation projects while caring for the wildlife impacted by these human activities.

“After I left the ministry, I regret to note the slow progress in the replanting of forest trees in the 2,500 hectares of degraded forest in Lower Kawag in the district of Lahad Datu, Sabah; as well as the project of planting more elephant grass and to create an elephant-corridor in the northern region of Sabah,” the Seputeh MP said.

Comments made in jest ‘distorted’

Meanwhile in a statement, the ministry said that the video clip was edited to distort the minister’s speech, given at a closed-door event organised by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council recently.

“In fact, some have tried to spin the minister’s words which were merely said in jest, to cast aspersions on her and the MPIC.

“The reason why the orang utan issue was brought up in the speech was to get agencies to study further the habitats and living habits of the species, in line with the country’s sustainable goals of promoting biodiversity.

“The findings would then be presented to foreign stakeholders like the European Union, where strong anti-palm oil lobbyists operate and could harm the sector’s long-term interests.

“However, certain parties have chosen to cherry-pick the speech to present a distorted view about Malaysia’s consistent stance of promoting a robust oil palm industry that could co-exist and flourish in a sustainable ecosystem,” said the ministry.

The ministry added that these would only undermine MPIC and MPOC’s efforts to promote Malaysian palm oil.

“We call on social media users to stop sharing such distorted content as this will only lower the morale of the tireless staff of MPIC and its agencies who had displayed respectable commitment in promoting Malaysian palm oil.” – January 20, 2022.