When will Johor apologise to the Rakyat?

Maybe it was too much work to administer Pulau Batu Puteh or the Horsburgh Lighthouse, maybe it was because there was no obvious substantiation to the rock formation, which has no room for agriculture, meaningful buildings and infrastructure, but the fact remains that Johor regards the outcrop as useless enough when its State Secretary decided to send a letter of disclaimer to the island in 1953.

Although I am a Johorean, I echo the sentiments of the Rector of Kolej Yayasan Melaka, Dr. Ramlah Adam that this was a weakness of the then Johor administration. Research was not properly done and the result was that key letter that doomed Malaysia to reluctantly accept a 'new Singapore' by adding potentially one hundred square kilometres of new territory of which Singapore would now gratefully convert from being underwater to a spanking reclaimed land.

Singapore already has an utter disregard for Malaysian interest especially in Malaysia's efforts to lead the region in exploring the oil and gas industry which would soon rival their own. The Johor Strait, already a loser in the 'crooked bridge' issue is now under further jeopardy with this development - any new reclamation there will further shallow the passage of ships entering the already hardly navigable strait heading towards the Pasir Gudang Port and the surrounding facilities.

I sincerely think that the Johor Government, though it was done before Merdeka, should apologise for this loss and find out how can we mitigate this loss.

Amir Hamzah Amha
http://puterabatu.blogspot.com