Better homes, facilities for Tuaran fishermen

Hajiji handing over the monthly assistance to Shah Juwara. At centre is Jamaludin. Shah, who will be 90 years old in May next year, has been fishing for a living since she was a girl, which probably explains her fitness despite her age.

TUARAN: Fishermen in the district will live in more comfortable houses and enjoy better facilities.

Malaysian Fishery Development Board (LKIM) Sabah branch director Jamaludin Othman said that 118 of fishermen’s houses would be repaired or improved at a cost of RM1.4 million and RM1.6 million would be spent to replace the walkways at three coastal villages in the district whose occupants are fishermen.

“More villages will enjoy this facility in the future. A fishery complex will also be built at the coastal village of Gayang to serve the surrounding villages.

“With the completion of the complex which will include a jetty, fishermen in Tuaran will have a centralised facility to land their catches and keep them fresh while waiting to be sold,” he said.

Jamaludin disclosed this at the ceremony where Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Hj Hajiji Hj Noor handed monthly aid to registered and qualified fishermen in Tuaran on Thursday.

The money came from LKIM, an agency under the Federal Ministry of Agricultue.

LKIM has been giving out the monthly aid to fishermen nationwide since last year. This means that if a fisherman did not spend the money, he would have saved almost RM5,000 by the end of this year.

In addition to the monthly aid to active fishermen, they are also covered under a special insurance scheme to protect them against accidents, injuries, permanent disabilities and deaths.

Meanwhile, Hajiji who is Sulaman assemblyman, said the LKIM aid is only part of the Barisan Nasional government’s efforts to assist the fishing community in Tuaran district in general and the Sulaman constituency in particular.

He cited the hundreds of millions of ringgit spent to rehabilitate the fishing community at Mengkabong and Panembawan where the villagers now have free new houses which are better organised with proper sanitation.

This, he pointed out, is in addition to the BR1M money received by the villagers earlier this year while another round of BR1M will be given out early next year.



Taken from: