JOHOR BARU, Nov 22 — A state lawmaker today urged the Johor government to monitor all quarry activities to stem the loss of millions of ringgit in state revenue to illegal operations.
Senggarang assemblyman Khairuddin A. Rahim said he had received reports on illegal sand and rock mining operations in the state that do not pay any premium tax.
While he did not know the actual amount of lost revenue, he said he believed it ran into tens of millions of ringgit.
“There are more than a hundred quarries operating in the state and some of them are reported to be operating illegally without any revenue made to the government,” Khairuddin told Malay Mail today.
However, he declined to reveal the exact amount and location of the illegal quarries.
Khairuddin, who is also an environmental activist, said the state government should screen all quarry activities to weed out illegal operations.
“The state government needs to be efficient so that government revenue can be collected as much as possible. The state government is not supposed to lose such revenue to illegally-operated quarries as the estimated amount is huge,” he said.
A source told Malay Mail that the number of illegal quarries could number up to 60 and that they are mainly located in central and eastern Johor.
According to statistics in 2017, Johor has 58 licenced quarries that deal with various types of aggregates, including granite and sand.
The Johor government imposes a premium tax of about RM800,000 per year for a quarry’s mining activities.
Last month, the Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry said it will submit a proposal to the government for the setting up of a commission to monitor and regulate quarrying and mining activities in the country.
Its deputy minister Tengku Zulpuri Shah Raja Puji was reported to have said that the commission would ensure guidelines on quarrying and mining activities were complied with, hence ensuring more efficient, safe and responsible activities.
