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| (From left to right) - Mohd Zain Ahmad, Yahya Ghani (first General Manager of Johor Port) | and the writer |
Note: This article was written in 2012 by my father, David Tan as a tribute to his good friend, En Mohd Zain Bin Ahmad. Sadly, En. Zain passed away on 4th April 2017.
These days, we have many container ports in Malaysia such as Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas, North Port, Penang Port
and West Port. However, very few people realised that
Port Klang was the first container port in South East Asia.
As a matter of fact, Port Klang was at one time even ahead of Singapore, though Singapore did subsequently become
the No. 1 port in the world.
This was all due to one man by the name of Haji Mohd
Zain Bin Ahmad or affectionately known as Che Zain. Che Zain was one of the
early Malayan graduates from the London School of Economics and had created
history as the first Malaysian General Manager of Port Klang Authority (Lembaga
Pelabuhan Klang). I could still vividly recall many years ago, Che Zain who was
then my neighbour came to my house and told me that Tun Abdul Razak (later
became the Prime Minister of Malaysia) who was then the Chairman of the
Infrastructure Committee asked him to set up the
first container terminal in Malaysia (later to be known as Klang Container
Terminal (KCT) and subsequently changed to Northport (Malaysia)). Sitting with
Tun Abdul Razak in the Committee was the then Minister of Finance, Tun Tan Siew
Sin who was known to be very careful and thrifty when it came to spending taxpayers' money. I was told that initially, Tun Tan Siew Sin refused to approve
the project as there were no commitments from major container shipping lines to
use the proposed terminal in Port Klang, therefore this posed to be huge risk
to the country. Those of us who are familiar with the shipping industry in the 1960s
would know that the major player at that time was a container line consortium
known as “Trio Group” which consisted of Overseas Container Line, NYK and
another. Che Zain being a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport (by
the way FCIT was earned by him and not given as an honorary title!) played a
major role to convince the Committee on the importance of the proposed
container terminal. Needless to say the Committee was convinced and decided to
take that risk by approving the project. I was told that the project cost a sum
of RM45 Million which was a lot of money back in 1967-68. For an approval to be
given for such an amount would mean great expectation from the Government. Che
Zain literally told me that he was placing his “head on the chopping block”. He
knew that any failure or mistake on his part in carrying out this project would
mean a major dent to his reputation. Anybody who knows Che Zain would know him
as a selfless man of great integrity, honesty and willing to shoulder the heavy
responsibility in carrying out the task. His no nonsense approach and his
excellent knowledge in managing ports served him well in carrying out the
project.
The first person appointed to head the container terminal
was Mr. Chung Kek Choo. Prior to that appointment, Kek Choo was the Traffic
Manager of Klang Port Authority (LPK). Kek Choo was later sent to the United States of America
to study the operations of container ports. Sadly after acquiring the knowledge
in operating container ports, Kek Choo left Malaysia
for Singapore
in 1969.
Kek Choo was hired by Mr. Howe Yoon Chong who was
then the Chairman of Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) (later became Head of
Singapore’s Civil Service and subsequently Singapore’s Minister of Defence).
In those days, Singapore’s
PSA was not allowed to employ non-Singaporeans to work in the port. Therefore
to avoid this direct ruling, Kek Choo was brought in under the guise of
“Special Assistant”. Subsequently, Kek Choo went on to become a consultant with
the World Bank in Washington,
D.C.
As you can see, Malaysia was a pioneer in setting
up a container terminal in this region and all of this largely owed to my old
and very dear friend, Che Zain. I could write a lot of things about Che Zain as
he is truly a man that is admired by many. Even though, Che Zain has served the
country well but unfortunately being a quiet and private man, he was never
given any due recognition by the country he loves so much. A lot of things
stated in this article could be verified by one of LPK’s illustrious former employee,
Dato’ Abdul Manan Othman (later became a Cabinet Minister under Tun Hussein
Onn’s administration) during Che Zain’s tenure as the General Manager. There
were many illustrious personalities that had served under Che Zain such as
Datuk Harun Din, En. Hashir Abdullah and Datuk M. Rajasingam.
So, where is En Zain today? En Zain who is now in his
80s is living a quiet life in Subang Jaya.
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