The government of Sabah has decided to cancel all infrastructure projects on Pulau Sipadan.

This includes the RM4.5 million clubhouse and seafood restaurant whose construction barge incident caused outrage among conservationists worldwide.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman said only "environmental-friendly" infrastructure projects would be allowed on the world's premier diving spot in the future.

"We will come up with a new development concept that is environmental- friendly and suits (the island's) ecosystem. We will announce it two or three months from now," he said at a press conference.

Musa said the new concept would be presented to the Prime Minister and the Joint Committee on Managing and Monitoring Sipadan Island headed by Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Samsuddin Osman.

He also promised to personally monitor future development projects carried out on the island.
"I will be fully responsible in monitoring all projects on the island under the new development concept," he added.

Musa said among the new projects being conceptualised were basic resting facilities for divers and an eco-friendly sewerage system.

On May 14, a barge laden with building materials for the clubhouse had damaged some 324.94sq metres of coral reefs at Pulau Sipadan. Outraged by the damage to corals, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rebuked Musa on July 27 for defying his advice not to build a clubhouse on the island.

The go-ahead for the controversial RM4.5mil clubhouse project on was given the go-ahead by the Federal Cabinet on July 2, 2003, said State Tourism, Culture and Environment assistant minister Datuk Karim Bujang. The approval was for Sabah Parks to implement the project after the Joint Management and Supervisory Committee of Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Ligitan adopted the Federal decision on Aug 2, 2005.

He said a committee of 17 people from the federal and state governments agreed on the setting up of a clubhouse, a sanitation system and toilets.

The committee decided to implement the project immediately without waiting for allocations under the 9th Malaysia Plan, Karim told Tan Sri Joseph Kurup at the state assembly sitting.

Kurup wanted to know why the state approved heavy works on the island when it had ordered all of the chalets to be removed in 2005.

Karim explained that the use of stones, cement and iron was only for the flooring, pillars and walls for the toilets that covered less than 10% of the whole proposed structure.

He said the project had now been scrapped and any decision on a new environmentally friendly structure would be handled by the Chief Minister.

On July 26 Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi berated Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman for going ahead with the project.

Asked by Kurup why the state government had decided to go ahead with the project, Karim said the decision to build structures on Sipadan was done in good faith by the joint committee, which has seven members from Sabah.

He said maintaining the old structures used by the diving resorts on the island was damaging to the island as a study found that the toilets and even soap used for bathing was affecting the island’s environment.