KUALA LUMPUR (April 1): Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh has commented that the waste pollution issue on Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng, Pahang, is not under the purview of the Entrepreneur Development Ministry.

Speaking to reporters at Parliament lobby today, Fuziah said the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (Mestecc) is the public department that is in charge of addressing the risk at LAMP, while investment matters have to be referred to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) and Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida).

"Let the Ministers settle this, because Mestecc has to answer this in regards to the risk. On investment, it is under Miti and Mida, nothing to do with the Entrepreneur Development Ministry.

"He (Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof) has no locus standi, I have locus standi. I maintain my stance, and agree with what Mestecc Minister has said, which is the pre-condition of renewing the licence, whereby they have to send the waste back to Australia, and the due date is not expired yet. It is in September," said Fuziah, who is also the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

"The Deputy (Mestecc) Minister has said that we will collaborate with the Australian Government to send back the waste, so let's wait. In my opinion, if they are not able to meet the deadline, their license should not be renewed, because that is a pre-condition.

"I don't think they should be allowed to continue to renew their licence if they fail to meet the deadline," she added.

To recap, Mohd Redzuan (PH-Alor Gajah) in the morning commented that the Cabinet had never decided collectively on the measures to manage the wastes of LAMP, and that the investment from Lynas Corp Ltd in Malaysia is "too big to ignore". Consequently, the Cabinet is not supposed to force the company to send its harmful wastes back to Australia, unless they are "very unsafe".

Redzuan’s remark came after Mestecc’s Deputy Minister Isnaraissah Munirah Majilis noted in Parliament that Minister Yeo Bee Yin had written an official letter to her Australian counterpart to collaborate on the transfer of Lynas' accumulated radioactive wastes from Malaysia to Australia.

His remark contradicted Mestecc’s move to summon Lynas to ship out the toxic wastes as one of the pre-conditions to renew the latter’s the operating licence of the rare earth materials producer in Malaysia.

The letter, said Isnaraissah in the Dewan Rakyat today, was written on Feb 26.

Isnaraissah was responding to a question from Wong Chen [PH-Subang] on steps taken by the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change to ensure Lynas returns its residual wastes to Australia.