JOHOR BARU - SAND worth millions of ringgit is being illegally
'floated' out of the country daily via Sungai Johor here, The Star
reported on Thursday, saying this has been going on for the past
three years.
A Star team investigating the lucrative trade found that the
sand ends up in Singapore, despite a ban on sand export imposed by
the Malaysian Government.
Sand extraction is a common sight along the river as mining
syndicates illegally transport millions of tonnes of sand, even on
weekends and public holidays, via Danga Bay and Port of Tanjung
Pelepas. The culprits use barges to pass through the international
waters from Kota Tinggi and Ulu Tiram before arriving at local
ports for shipment to Singapore.
The probe revealed that the barges are directed towards a
private jetty or landing point at Pulau Punggol Timur in Singapore
where the sand is unloaded.
A Singaporean company, which obtains the sand from a Malaysian
partner, supplies it to the Housing Board of Singapore for its
construction projects.
The Star team's visit to the landing point revealed that the
sand from the barges was loaded onto trucks before being taken to
the Pulau Punggol Timur jetty for storage. To circumvent the
Malaysian ban on sand export, the syndicates are believed to be
exporting this highly sought-after material as processed or
'packed' silica sand, an item that can be exported.
By obtaining sand from its Malaysian partner, the Singaporean
company is making huge profits as it only pays S$30 per cubic metre
compared with S$40 for the same amount of sand from Thailand,
Vietnam and Cambodia. It is estimated that since August 2007, more
than three million cubic metres of sand has been smuggled out
through Sungai Johor.
Starprobe's findings also revealed that more than 90 per cent of
the sand was extracted from Sungai Johor while the rest was from
sand mines from the Kota Tinggi and Johor Baru districts.
-- THE STAR