Kelah looking at freshly harvested mussels. Workers sort them out according to size before sending them to Muar, Melaka and Kuala Lumpur.
Kampung Orang Asli Kuala Masai villagers in Johor want the local government to intervene as a development project is blocking the main road to their area.
Village chief Kelah Lah said the developer promised to fix the road by October when the project started back in July this year.
“Now it is already November, but the main road is still closed.
“The villagers’ livelihood is dependent on the mussel farm nearby, which they harvest and send out for delivery every day.
“With the main road closed, large vehicles such as lorries are not able to transport these mussels that have been harvested to Muar, Melaka and Kuala Lumpur,” he said when met at his village.
Kelah, who is also Kampung Orang Asli Kuala Masai Fishermen’s Association chairman, explained that the villagers now had to use an alternative route to enter and exit the village.
“The problem with Jalan Kampung Melayu is that it is very narrow and only one car can use the road at a time.
“If there are two cars heading in opposite directions, a vehicle would either hit a fence of a village house or get stuck on a muddy road,” he said.
Kelah said this inconvenience had also increased operating costs of delivering the mussels to a village intersection.
“We can harvest about 250kg of mussels every day. But if the truck cannot come in, we have to send it out using our vehicles, so it doubles our workload in terms of loading and unloading,” he explained, adding that each kilogramme of mussels was sold at RM3.
When contacted, Pasir Gudang mayor Datuk Asman Shah Abd Rahman said he had visited the village to listen to their concerns.
“I have spoken to the developer and requested that they fix the main road leading into the village.
“This will be the first thing we will check once they apply for their Certificate of Completion and Compliance (CCC),” he said, adding that the developer had agreed to fix the road immediately.
Asman Shah said the main issue right now was the height of the road.
“The road is about 2m above ground level, so either we bring it down to at least 0.5m or we build a retaining wall to ensure it does not corrode.
“It is located next to a playing field, so it is a huge safety risk,” he added.
