Why scare of the reporters, huh?

The press people who wanted to interview the state ministers and chief minister after the state cabinet meeting this morning were shocked to learn that they were barred from entering Wisma Bapa Malaysia.

A notice was pasted at the guardhouse at Wisma Bapa Malaysia, telling reporters and photographers that they were unwelcomed.

According to the guards, they were informed yestterday about the directive to bar the press people.

Normally, the press people would wait at the ground floor of the building for the cabinet meeting to finish.

However, this time they were not allowed to step into the compound of the building.

The guards said they were not told of the reasons for barring the press people.

Some reporters, under pressure from their editors to come back with stories, are still waiting outside the guardhouse as at 3.50pm, inspite of the blazing sun.

Dr Patau's STAR to spread wing to Sabah

Kuching (Dec 14, 2011): Maverick Sabah politician Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan is to announce the setting up of the Sabah chapter of the Sarawak State Reform Party (STAR) in Kota Kinabalu on Friday, his close friend said tonight.

He said STAR president Dr Patau Rubis have agreed to extend his party's influence to neighbouring state.

"Dr Jeffrey and Dr Patau have talked of spreading STAR to Sabah for sometime, and they have agreed," Dr Jeffrey's close friend said.

He said Dr Jeffrey had to resort to STAR after failing to re-register United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) with the Registrar of Societies (ROS).

USNO was dissolved in 1991 after UMNO spread its wing to Sabah, after PBS pulled out of the Barisan Nasional in the middle of the campaign for the 1990 general election.

Dr Jeffrey had also submitted an application to register his United Borneo Front (UBF) as a political party with the ROS, but has not succeeded.

According to sources, a number of Dr Jeffrey's supporters are expected to join to join the Sabah chapter of STAR.

Baru wants Taib & family members to be arrested

Media Statement: Taib’s Corruption – The Grandest Scandal of Them All?

A group of international and Malaysian NGOs have written a letter to the Malaysian authorities demanding the immediate arrest and criminal prosecution of Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud and his family members for the alleged illegal appropriation of public funds.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the Attorney General and the Inspector General of Police must respond immediately to the letter and evidence furnished by the NGOs.

While Taib’s wealth is not a secret, the details provided by the NGOs are shocking. Taib and his family’s alleged interest in just 14 companies amount to RM4.6 billion. In total, Taib and his family are alleged to have interests in 332 Malaysian and 85 foreign companies.

This debunks his recent official interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YK8KGX7E4A) where he stated that his family’s wealth is accumulated from business abroad and due to their talents.

Unfortunately, this allegation will continue the downward trend of Malaysia’s corruption score, making a mockery of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s transformation agenda. As Transparency International has stated, Malaysia continues to slide due to its inaction on ‘grand corruption’.

In other cases, the most recent being the alleged RM250 million National Feedlot Corporation scandal involving Minister Shahrizat Jalil and her family, the authorities do nothing. If they continue to remain silent in this grandest alleged corruption cases of them all that has now come to the world’s attention and drawn wide interest internationally, not only will our country’s image continue to deteriorate, but so will the faith of the rakyat.

Baru Bian

Sarawak State Chairman, Parti Keadilan Rakyat

State Assemblyman for Ba’ Kelalan

NGOs call on MACC and Police to act

Malaysian prosecutors asked to arrest the Sarawak Chief Minister

"Conspiracy to form a criminal organization": the Taib family around 1990

In a letter to Malaysia's Attorney General (AG), the Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), an international NGO coalition is requesting that Malaysia's top prosecutors immediately arrest and criminally prosecute long-term Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud ("Taib"), his four children, his eight siblings and his first cousin, Abdul Hamed Sepawi ("Sepawi").

According to the NGOs' letter to Malaysia's top prosecutors, Taib and "thirteen of his family members as co-conspirators" are accused of "the illegal appropriation of public funds, the abuse of public office, the illegal appropriation of state land, fraud, larceny, corruption, systematic exploitation of conflicts of interest, suspected money-laundering, and conspiracy to form a criminal organization."

The letter is signed by thirteen NGOs from Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom as well as a number of individual signatories from Malaysia. Greenpeace, FERN and the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund are among its most prominent international signatories. Three NGOS from Sarawak - Borneo Resources Institute Sarawak (BRIMAS), The Network for Native Land Rights (TAHABAS) and the Sibu-based Institute for Development of Alternative Living (IDEAL) - have also endorsed the letter.

Foreign governments, corporations and media informed on Taib corruption

Copies of the letter have been sent to all major foreign embassies in Malaysia, heads of government, cabinet ministers and prosecutors in seven countries, the top executives of ten multinational corporations who conduct business in or with Sarawak and the editors of leading media around the globe. The letter is accompanied by sixteen exhibits that document the accusations against the Taib family and can be downloaded online at www.stop-timber-corruption.org/resources.

Research by the Bruno Manser Fund has shown that Taib and his immediate family members have a stake in 332 Malaysian and 85 foreign companies worth several billion US dollars. The known Taib family stake in the net assets of 14 large Malaysian companies alone is over 1.46 billion US dollars.

Taib family accused of systematic breach of the law and the use of illegal methods

"We allege that only the systematic breach of the law and the use of illegal methods has enabled Mr. Taib and his family members to acquire such massive corporate assets", the NGO letter states. "Mr. Taib has been a state-paid public servant and government minister ever since 1963 and did not possess any significant independent assets prior to taking up office."

The letter gives three examples of Taib family-controlled Malaysian companies that have been systematically, unduly and unlawfully favoured by the Sarawak Chief Minister - Cahya Mata Sarawak (KLSE 2582), Achi Jaya Holdings and Ta Ann Holdings (KLSE 5012). Cahya Mata Sarawak holds a monopoly on cement production in Sarawak, Achi Jaya Holdings holds a monopoly on timber export licences and Ta Ann Holdings, which is headed by Taib's cousin Sepawi, has been granted more than 675,000 hectares of timber and plantation concessions without public tender.

"Pernicious and detrimental" capital flight should be heavily punished

In addition, the NGOs point to the Taib family's transfer of illicit assets worth "hundreds of millions, if not billions, of US dollars" out of Malaysia to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Hong Kong. "This is particularly pernicious and detrimental for the economy of Sarawak and Malaysia as a whole and should thus be heavily punished."

The Taib family has been identified as being behind property companies in Canada (Sakto Corporation, City Gate International Corporation and others), in the UK (Ridgeford Properties Ltd.), in the US (Wallysons Inc, Sakti International Corporation and others) and as being closely linked to at least 22 companies in Australia. Some of these companies have, according to the NGOs' letter, been given to the Taibs free of charge by the son of Yaw Teck Seng, the founder and majority shareholder of Samling, one of Malaysia's biggest logging conglomerates. Other Taib companies, such as Regent Star and Richfold Investments in Hong Kong, have been found to be linked to a multi-million-dollar kickback scheme uncovered by Japanese tax investigators.

Malaysia's international credibility is at stake

The NGOs come to the conclusion that "the criminal nature of Mr. Taib and his family members' 'private' businesses can no longer be denied by anyone who is intellectually honest, desirous of seeing the truth and interested in the good of the Malaysian people and, in particular, the people of Sarawak".

"We would like to remind you that Malaysia, as a signatory to the UN Convention against corruption and the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, has a strong international obligation to fight corruption and organized crime in an efficient, timely and expedient manner", the letter states.

Malaysia's top prosecutors are finally asked to fulfil their duty and take immediate police action against Abdul Taib Mahmud and his 13 co-conspiring family members: "Malaysia's international credibility is at stake over the Taib case."

- Ends -

Read the NGO letter to the Malaysian prosecutors:
letter_ag_macc_igp_signed.pdf (905KB)
Back

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Opposition raised an issue on Taib's long tenure: Dr Chan

 

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak (right) at the launch of Chan's book. Looking on is Sarawak tourism minister Datuk Seri Abang Johari Tun Abang Openg (middle). BERNAMA

KUCHING (Dec 12, 2011): Former Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) president Tan Sri Dr George Chan alleged his party had "a very bad nightmare" in the last state election because the Opposition made an issue out of the long tenure of Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud to attract support among the urban Chinese.
"His refusal to step down and appoint a successor became an unnecessary diversion from our achievements," he wrote in his book "What Now?" which touched mostly on SUPP's struggle in the last three years of his presidency.
"The issue (on Taib) was further exacerbated by unfounded allegations of amassing a huge fortune while in office, which were posted in numerous websites, especially the Sarawak Report," Dr Chan, who failed to defend his Piasau seat in the state election, wrote in his book which was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak last Saturday, immediately after he opened SUPP's triennial delegates conference.
He said: There were many distractions which hampered our preparations (for the state election).
"The Dudong issue kept resurfacing. The perceived ineffectiveness of SUPP within the state government, hard-hitting negative campaigning by the Opposition, internal positioning and bickering, particularly at the branch level, were all constantly resurfacing.
"All these sapped our time and energy, even our resources, somewhat," he said.
The Dudong issue concerned quarrel among senior members of the party over the formation of a branch in Dudong.
SUPP contested in 19 seats, mostly in the urban areas where the Chinese form the majority voters, losing 13 of them to the Opposition in the state elections.
Dr Chan noted with interest a statement from a civil society group leader, urging SUPP to abandon Taib or be buried in the state election.
"Looking back, it seems that what he said turned out to be factual. SUPP was almost buried after the April 16, 2011 election ," he said, conceding that the statement by the civil society group was a general feeling of the Chinese towards the chief minister and SUPP.
"Somehow, rightly or wrongly, his message sank down well with the urban voters who are Internet-savvy. His lies and half-truths made an impact and our publicity was unable to match that from Peninsular Malaysia," he said.
"If the May 20, 2006 electoral disaster was etched in our memory for a long, long time, then the April 16, 2011 results could be considered a very bad nightmare, for SUPP suffered its worst defeat in its history," he said.
"We worked so hard with the hope of retaining our seats from 2006 at least. But we were crushed. We lost 13 seats to the Opposition and became the biggest Barisan Nasional casualty," he wrote.
He said he knew he was about to lose his Piasau seat, which he had served since 1983, even before the final tally was counted.
"I was constantly being updated by our people at the party headquarters in Kuching and our operation room in Miri.
"One after another, our seats fell," he added.
Dr Chan said he bore no bitterness in his heart against anyone for SUPP's disastrous electoral performance.
"I will always maintain that this was an election where SUPP made all the right moves and had all the right strategies to win.
"However, so many factors beyond our control were at play and we were caught in its tail-spin and crushed," he wrote.
He said he submitted his resignation letter to the party to take full responsibility for the defeat in 13 seats, but the Central Working Committee requested him to stay on and see out the full term.
He said he then immediately set about looking for ways to prepare for a handover to the younger generation.
His word of caution to the government – make sure no community is sidelined or victimised, especially in the Opposition-controlled areas, otherwise, there will surely be additional retaliation in the 13th general election.