LABUAN: The privatisation of Labuan Corporation (LC) subsidiaries such as Labuan Development Authority (LDA) Labuan (Holdings) Sdn Bhd was not decided by LC but the government under the Prime Minister’s Department, said Labuan Member of Parliament, Datuk Rozman Isli yesterday.
He was commenting on claims by certain quarters here that he made a wrong decision by privatising the profitable LC subsidiaries, which would affect the welfare of Labuan people.
“In the meeting earlier, I asked for the postponement of the decision for a year or two. But the government in the Prime Minister’s Department instructed that it must be implemented within six months.
“Before I became the chairman of LC, the decision has been made and actually many parties have made the call to privatise LDA.
“Even though it will be privatised, I want the LDA to be run under the Labuan Education Foundation (LEF).
“LDA will help to serve LEF’s purpose in serving the local people’s needs especially in terms of education, entrepreneurship and other purposes to uplift the local people’s standard of living,” he said during his Aidilfitri Open House at his residence.
Rozman explained that many things could be done if the LDA was privatised compared to when it was still under the local authority of LC, where LC would focus on facility matters.
He said further that after the LDA became a private organisation, it would be further structured to attract more investors and visitors to come to Labuan.
Rozman recalled the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s words that the future development of this country would be led by private driven organisations, as it would save the government funds to administer the country better.
“Among other things that we will do is, all the land application will go through to LEF after the LDA is run under LEF,” he said, adding that they had applied for three road projects here where one of them would be the bypass at the Saguking area this year.
When asked, Rozman said that they were doing a whole masterplan for Labuan development and waiting for some of the blueprints to be finalised where they would tackle the basic things such as to provide sufficient parking lots, to lessen the traffic congestion, rising cost of land, terminal ferry relocation, lack of housing area and others.
He disclosed that the Air Cargo Terminal that would be set up in Labuan Airport in 2015 would be placed under 11th Malaysian Plan project, while saying that he was keen to strengthen Labuan’s position as a logistical upstream hub in oil and gas activities, as it was a major contributor for the Labuan oil and gas industry development.