Review of decision to freeze timber licence urged
Published on: Wednesday, March 04, 2020
Photo for illustration only.
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Timber Industries Association (STIA) has proposed to the State Government to review its decision to freeze the Form IIB licence in the near future.The association said this because about 15 to 20 per cent of the volume of raw timber supply going to the domestic mills are coming from logs produced using the Form IIB licence.
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It said prolonging the restriction might give a negative impact on the local wood industry and mill workers.
The association said apart from that, it would also give impact in the form of revenue loss to the Government from the timber tax collection.
The association made the proposal during the coordination meeting on Form IIB licence and land clearing and development issues organised by Sabah Forestry Department together with other agencies at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) here on Feb 27.
The meeting, chaired by Sabah Chief Conservator of Forest, Datuk Mashor Mohd Jaini, was held following the Government instruction to temporarily freeze all the Form IIB license processing for the purpose of improving it.
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The meeting is seeking the best approach to empower the IIB License issuance and processing mechanism as an instrument to control the production of timbers from land clearing and development. This will help to efficiently and effectively seal any room and opportunity of it being abused to do forest crime activities.
STIA was among those upstream and downstream wood industry players present at the meeting. The other was Timber Association of Sabah (TAS), while the relevant departments and agencies present include Sabah Attorney-General Chamber, police, Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission, Road Transport Department, Natural Resources Secretary Office, Land and Survey Department, State Agriculture Department, State Environmental Conservation Department, State Wildlife Department, and Sabah Rubber Industry Board.
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Among several improvements proposed include sharing of information, responsibility and accountability by several departments and agencies through the setting up of district-level committee on application to extract timber logs from development of land and the enforcement by State Forestry Department and Land and Survey Department to be strengthened further using the latest technology like drone and satellite imaging to monitor the opening of titled and government lands.
On increasing the awareness and correct negative public perception, the State Forestry Department will implement an outreach programme with the purpose to instil understanding on the management system, logging and licensing, particularly on Form IIB License which is actually not a timber logging licence but a licence to transfer forest resources, after the amount of taxes involved already paid, from titled land area based on Forest Enactment 1968 and Forest Rules 1969.
The State Forestry Department will prepare a Cabinet Paper for proposing all the mitigation approaches and improvement to the Form IIB License administration and enforcement in the near future.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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