PUTRAJAYA, March 9 — The Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry (KPDN) has smashed activities of misappropriating fishermen’s subsidised diesel at a premise in Sungai Besar during a raid on March 5.
Its minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali said the site was suspected to be an illegal store and transfer point for fishermen’s subsidised diesel. The enforcement team seized 24,875 litres of diesel and equipment used for the fraudulent activities.
Three local men aged between 30 and 40, suspected to be premise workers, were arrested, with the total seizure estimated at RM187,350.
“The raid was carried out as a result of intelligence, and the syndicate, which is believed to have been operating for a long time, is a major player in misappropriating fishermen’s subsidised diesel,” he said in a statement today.
On Ops Tiris, Armizan said KPDN will submit reports and recommendations based on the findings obtained during the implementation of operation to the Agriculture and Food Security Ministry (MAFS) to strengthen the control mechanism to implement the fishermen’s subsidised diesel and petrol subsidy scheme.
“The reports and recommendations are important findings obtained during the implementation of Ops Tiris 1.0 and Ops Tiris 2.0, which began on March 1 last year and is continued through Ops Tiris 3.0 now,” he said.
The focus of enforcement on subsidised diesel leakage now is on the implementation of providing subsidised diesel to fishermen.
It involves the risk of leakage with the sale of subsidised diesel to ineligible industrial sectors and smuggling to foreign fishermen, and as such, KPDN will strengthen cooperation with KPKM and related enforcement agencies.
Based on enforcement statistics under Ops Tiris 3.0 from January 1 to March 6 this year, 9,093 premises had been inspected nationwide, with 245 investigation papers opened.
The successful exercise resulted in the seizure of 2.264 million litres of subsidised diesel subsidy worth RM 5.39 million.
In the same period, the value of the seizure involving other equipment, vehicles and others was worth over RM12 million, making the total seizure value under Ops Tiris 3.0 for subsidised diesel cases over RM17 million.
— Bernama
