Heat over satellite dish crackdown in Sabah
By Azman Habu, FMT
TAWAU: The seizure of 193 satellite dishes around Sabah by the Customs Department has drawn into the spotlight the federal government’s continued bias towards KL-based satellite service provider Astro and its victimizing of Sabahans.
Deputy Chief Minister Dr Yee Moh Chai as well as several senior opposition leaders, in voicing their shock, have also branded the seizures as “ridiculous”.
“After all we are subscribing to the Prime Minister’s ‘People First Performance Now’ dictum,” he said after making known his unhappiness with federal government’s continued policy of not allowing people to use parabolic satellite dishes.
The state Customs Department announced over the weekend it had launched crackdown on the use of unapproved satellite dishes last month under Customs Act 1967.
Those caught in possession are liable to a fine of not less than 10 times the value of the seized items or imprisonment of up to three years or both.
A total of 64 dishes were confiscated from residences in the districts of Beaufort, Papar, Kota Kinabalu, 76 in Keningau and Tambunan and 48 in Tawau, department deputy director Hamzah Sundang said on Saturday.
Each dish costs between RM300 to RM500 making the total seizures worth about RM200,000.
Yee, who is also Sabah Resource Development and Information Technology Minister, said it was absurd that the use of such dishes was still banned in a borderless world.
“We should accept the fact that the world is getting smaller. For a runner, for example, they cannot be asked to use only one type of shoes. We cannot allow a monopoly,” he told the reporters here.
Astro monopoly criticized
He said preventing people from using any satellite dishes apart from those supplied by Astro did not make sense and was also a monopolistic exercise condoned by the government.
Yee said that the rational for not allowing the public to use such dishes in the past was because the federal government wanted to control information.
“But now people can access information from anywhere,” he said, adding that disallowing the use of satellite dishes “is like the ostrich burying its head in the sand … it is not tenable and against the interests of the nation.”
Sabah DAP leader Jimmy Wong also slammed the seizures as an affront to freedom of information.
He said there was nothing wrong in people buying parabolic dishes as they are doing what the government wants them to tap on more information to gain more knowledge and achieve the government’s vision of becoming a fully developed nation by 2020.
“Parabolic dishes are cheap and can help people gather three to four times more information than is available. In China there are more than 100 stations.
“The government should get rid of the policy prohibiting the people from using these dishes,” he said.
He also criticized the monopoly held by Astro.
“At the moment we are only limited to Astro … there is no competition, a total monopoly.
“If the government really means the words – ‘People First’ – the government should be open to other satellite channel providers, just like the many cellular phone companies.
