Enhanced security at ESSZone areas lauded
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Tourism Federation (STF) welcomed the latest measures to further enhance security of tourists in the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZone) areas.
Its president, Dato’ Seri Winston Liaw, said the installation of systemic communication systems and global positioning systems (GPS) on boats would ease the monitoring of boats by the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCom).
He said mobile phones might not have signals out in the sea and victims might not be able to call for help during an emergency.
“In the event of robbery or abduction, the communication systems will make it easier for ESSCom to communicate and rescue them (the victims).”
He said ESSCom must also ensure its radar system could detect legal and illegal boats, and immediately halt illegal boats from moving forward.
Liaw said this when commenting on ESSCom’s operation centre chief of staff Brigadier General Datuk Md Rahim Mohamad’s statement that the ESSCom had further enhanced the security of tourists in the ESSZone areas, and one of the measures was the requirement for boat operators to obtain security cover for tourist activities, including diving and island hopping, in the east coast of Sabah.
Rahim said tour operators would now be required to send their appointed boat crews to the nearest police station for special training, as well as imposed the installation of systematic communication systems on boats before they were allowed to head out to sea.
Operators must also report to assigned security officials before conducting diving activities, while security officials will be placed in a boat together with the tourists for security reasons, Rahim said.
While the requirement for operators to report to assigned security officials before conducting diving activities was troublesome, Liaw said the measure would at least enable security personnel to keep track of the number of tourists going out and returning from diving activities.
In terms of execution, he suggested reporting or passing the passenger list to security officials stationed at resorts to save time rather than having to report to police stations.
“I believe these measures can drastically reduce the incidence of abduction.”
With these measures in place, Liaw said ESSCom should also increase manpower to patrol the east coast.
On Rahim’s disclosure that ESSCom had thwarted nine kidnapping-for-ransom attempts since the implementation of the 6pm to 6am curfew in ESSZone from July last year, Liaw said tourists would gradually regain confidence on Sabah or the east coast for diving.
Nonetheless, he said the number of tourists who had gone diving in the east coast since last year had actually increased slightly.
“Tourist arrivals to the west coast or Kota Kinabalu has dropped a lot, but tourists visiting the east coast has not been affected and even experienced a slight growth.”
He explained this could be due to the fact that divers were not deterred by rare incidents, referring to abduction, because of their innate adventurous spirit.
“During our visit to Wuhan, China with Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun in May, we had a dialogue with the Chinese travel agencies.
“They said abductions only happened once or twice a year (in Sabah), and such incidents occurred everywhere in the world.
“The Chinese travel agencies said abductions were not that bad in Sabah,” he added.
Liaw said resorts in Tawau and Semporna were faring well in their occupancy rates, and most resorts were fully booked during the Golden Week of China early this month.
The Golden Week is when China celebrates its National Day with week-long holiday, whereby many Chinese tourists take this opportunity to go travelling.
“There are a lot of tourists from China on planes flying to Tawau.
“This indicates that China tourists have confidence in security at the east coast.”
Source: Borneo Post
