Two wonderful events happened in April 1974. I got a son on April Fools Day and a job offer by Guthrie Malaysia Bhd. This company was 70% owned by Guthrie Corporation Limited, London and 30% Malaysian Shareholders. I was recruited by Guthrie Management Services Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Guthrie Malaysia Bhd. The job took me for 6 months training at the Palm Oil Terminal in Singapore Port. My eventual location would be at Pasir Gudang. I was accommodated at Sloane Court Hotel, Balmoral Road, Singapore. The training was to commence on 2nd May 1974.
Upon reporting at the Terminal, I had so many surprises. The Terminal complex and its storage tanks were so small and few compared to the one I previously worked at Esso. Product stored was only crude palm oil compared to the various hazardous products that I used to handle. The crude palm oil came from various Palm Oil Mills in southern and eastern Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore Port was the transit point before export. In Malaysia during that period of time, only Port Klang and Butterworth Port that had Palm Oil Terminal. My eventual location, Pasir Gudang Palm Oil Terminal owned by Felda Johore Bulkers Sdn Bhd, was still under construction. There was not much training to do and I just got to familiarized myself with the method of crude palm oil shipment. Crude palm oil is non flammable and loading the products to the ship’s tanks was chicken feed. The operation of unloading and loading liquid products was more or less similar what I had experienced. On the administrative sides, I got to understudy stock keeping method and maintaining Supplier’s Ledger. On the engineering aspect, the biggest and complicated equipment, was the Boiler. Boiler was needed to heat up the crude palm oil to 55 degree centigrade during shipment. After 2 weeks of familiarization, I was already on the job, not on training anymore.
Came November 1974, the so called training completed. I was recalled to Kuala Lumpur and assigned to Felda Installation Port Klang with 10 newly recruited Handyman and 2 Stock Clerks. Again, I was accomodated in a Hotel, the famous Jaya Puri in Petaling Jaya. I became the Trainer. The Pasir Gudang Terminal was 95% completed and awaiting for our arrival in December.
In December 1974, I moved my crew to Pasir Gudang and we were responsible to commission the Terminal. I report to the Singapore Terminal Manager, as he was on double Management assignment. My position was Superintendent and I was on secondment to this Terminal. This Terminal own by 70% Felda and 30% by other Plantation Companies. I had to find a house in Masai, the nearest town to Pasir Gudang. Masai then, was like a cowboy town, shop houses still attap roofed. It was a new Port and the loading Jetty was ill equipped. They had no crane and we had to heave the loading hoses manually on board the tanker to the loading manifold manually. Electricity supply often interrupted and we had to rely on the standby generator set. We often experienced water shortage. We received the first drop of crude palm oil from a home trade tanker ex Trengganu. There was a lot of excitement and commotion as this was the first vessel that we were going to handle, as well as the Port. To commemorate, the vessel name was “MV Tutong”. I forgot that we had to adhere to certain marine and custom regulations regarding the arrival and departure of a vessel. I was not trained to be a Shipping Agent. In actual fact, neither did the Port Management. This operation should be handled by appointed Shipping Agent. I had to run around to Johore Baharu where all the Government Offices were located. All went well after that and were receiving and shipping the crude palm oil. On 1st January, I was promoted to Assistant Terminal Manager and wholly responsible for the Operation Department. Since the Terminal Manager was residing in Singapore, I was fully responsible for the security of the Terminal during non operational hours. The operation of the terminal was simple and straight forward. Crude palm Oil by road tanker arrived, weighed for gross and tare, pumped into the allocated storage tank and the next morning checked whether the quantity receipt more or less tallied with the quantity in the storage tank. The storage tanks were calibrated by certified surveyors. The commissioning went smoothly and so were the operation then. More staff was employed as the quantity handled had increased and we had taken over the shipment which was normally handled by Singapore Port. The hardest part was man management and appropriate tasks assignment. To prevent theft by road tanker at night, I hold the terminal gate key and a spare one in glass box, to be broken only on extreme emergency.
I was approached by one gentleman, one night while I was watching television in my rented house. He requested for my collusion to open the gate to transfer out some oil. I told him, I could do it provided he called my Boss in Singapore and if he said it was okay, I would do it for him. That was the last time, I saw him. After that, I never walked alone in town. One morning, the stock Clerk reported that there was a shortage of 16 ton of oil in the storage tank. I instructed him to re compute the quantity in all the storage tanks and the 16 tons was no where found. All weigh bridge receipts was reconciled and the 16 tons could not be traced. I worked all through the day to solve this shortage and all aspects were covered. Sometimes in the evening, I remembered about the print on duplicate recording at the back of the weighbridge scale reading. Upon scrutinizing, I found similar reading recording of same weight consecutively. That reading involved a16 ton net weight of crude palm oil. At normal instances it was impossible to get these type of recorded readings. I confronted the Weighbridge clerk and he denied of any wrong doing. The next day I made a Police Report and the police Inspector summoned him to the Station. All the truth came out and the modus operandi demonstrated. Smart, but a little bit stupid. He forgot about the duplicate roll. The whole mafia gang was sacked and faced a court trial.
Effective 1st August 1977, I was assigned on secondment again, for 6 months, to Guthrie Export Sdn Bhd, Port Klang to their under construction Palm Oil Terminal. I was to commission this new terminal and I had to start all over again with the new position as Project Executive. GESB was the subsidiary company of Kumpulan Guthrie Corporation. This time, I moved my family with me to Port Klang. While I was away in Singapore and Pasir Gudang, my family was residing in Port Dickson. I was commuting once every forth night. On one instance, I met with a nasty car accident at the most prone death area of Simpang Rengam. I came out unscathed, but my Volvo 144 was wrecked. Good old BV 2949. I had my safety belt on, even though during that time, ruling on safety belt was not yet implemented. Esso trained me to be safety conscious.
My status as at 1st August 1977: Employee of Guthrie Malaysia Bhd, serving at Guthrie Management Services Sdn Bhd, now seconded to Kumpulan Guthrie Corporation and its subsidiary, Guthrie Export Sdn Bhd. Sound complicated? I was getting confused
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