Taib out for one last shot Al Tugauw | Feb 11, 09 3:51pm
Letters at Malaysiakini
I refer to the Malaysiakini report Give S'wak advance payment for 10th Plan: Taib.
Can anyone really believe that?
In reality, he wants to use this money to cover up the contagion effects of all the financial misdeeds of his government, such as the billions lost in 1st Silicon, Borneo Pulp, Assar, etc. as well as to siphon off through CMS, Naim Cendera and other crony companies, knowing very well that this is his last term in office.
Under the current economic situation, these can no longer be covered up using existing resources or funding. The full extent of the damage caused to Sarawak by 28 years of Taib's financial mismanagement, corruption and cover-up now threatens to blow up in his face.
The question is, who will really benefit from the bringing forward of these infrastructure works under the 10th Malaysia Plan, Sarawak - its people or Taib, his family and cronies?
The fact that he presides over one of the poorest states in Malaysia despite its timber, oil and gas wealth alone says it all. Where has all that wealth gone?
I have a feeling that this is just another of Taib's evil schemes to rob the state of more of its wealth in a final orgy of outright looting. Does he really care about the effects of the economic slowdown on Sarawak, since he may not even be around for much longer?
The worst case scenario will become even worse once the true extent of the damage done by Taib, his family and cronies is revealed.
Public sector investment will, of course, will benefit none other than himself, his family and cronies. Or being his last term in office, perhaps he may even leave his cronies to drown? That should be a sobering thought for them.
He is quoted as saying ‘even in this (export) sector, the pain would be temporary as the state government had laid down programmes offering investment opportunities capable of generating sound returns later’.
What programmes? What about all those programmes which have been generating losses for so long? Will it be a case of more good money being thrown after bad? When is later?
He is also quoted as putting forward Score (Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy), as the kind of approach that will ensure there is a foundation for sustainable development for the next few years.
Again the question is who will score from Score?
If as Taib claims, investments in Score ''were not only sound but of a long-term nature and not requiring the generation of any revenue until 2013'', in reality then, there is no prospect of immediate revenue generation from Score (if there were initial investments at all in the first place), let alone any net income for a very long time. Taib, his family and cronies would certainly have cashed out much earlier.
Furthermore, if in the initial stage, the emphasis in Score is on construction and laying out the necessary infrastructure for the heavy industries that have been planned. Surely this means that the people's money will have to be spent first without any real prospect of returns? Guess who will make money from this construction and infrastructure?
The full extent of what Sarawak has suffered will not be known until Taib dies or leaves or is removed from office.
For Taib to describe the situation in the state as not so bad when compared with countries like the US, UK, Europe and Japan is rather disingenuous.
Of course, it doesn't appear to be so bad since he has managed to keep the real damage hidden all these years, while the rural people of Sarawak have been waiting and suffering for so long thinking that Taib and the BN government were really doing all they can to alleviate their poverty.
Basically, the BN government and Taib are still just playing the denial game and hoping to bluff their way out of the impending disaster. Let us all be aware of this. They will not be so lucky this time.
The vultures have come home to roost and it will take more than advance payment of funds from the 10th Malaysia Plan (even if, hard to believe, that is not a ploy to have one last go) to mitigate their deeds and the consequences thereof.
7 comments:
ANGRY DAYAK
They say only BN can bring development, After 45 years under BN..
-Where is our roads to connect our longhouses to the big cities ??
-Where is our clean water and electricity 24/7 ??
I had enough with BN lying every elections...
Let us join DAP.. Let us all DAYAK PEOPLE join DAP, only DAP dare to fight racist UMNO leaders. Only DAP not using religion with politic !!!
LET US ALL DAYAK PEOPLE GO BACK GAWAI DAYAK AND ASK OUR LONGHOUSE PEOPLE JOIN US AND SUPPORT DAP !!!
Taib Mahmud - A study in knavery
During his twenty eight years tenure as Sarawak's Chief Minister, there is no doubt Taib Mahmud had used his power directly or indirectly to enrich his family's and extended family's fortune, the list of projects, concessions, permits etc. handed over on silver platters to his family controlled publicly listed Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMSB) runs longer than a newly unused toilet roll.
CMSB uncannily reads Chief Minister and Sons' Business, but whether this is by design or an inadvertent acronym has been a source of much speculation in coffee shop talks. This privileged conglomerate itself holds a mind boggling array of subsidiaries that span the length and breath and every nook and corner of Sarawak, besides many other less obvious investments in Peninsular Malaysia and even overseas. His gargantuan appetite for anything and everything that makes money is legendary, you name it, he's in it: property,banking, timber, shipping, construction, industrial, international school,plantations, hotels, convention centre, retail, manufacturing, IT, even trash collection. If they don't own it outright, they do it stealthily by proxies or cronies or through a maze of labyrinthine holdings and nominee companies.
Taib holds absolute power over every aspect of development, planning, approval, implementing and running, private or public works. A wave of his hand is enough to send bureaucrats scurrying to attend to his behest, be it approval of alienation of state land to private corporations or getting the nod for a high-rise building, or giving state land to illegal squatters (usually prior to state election) and many more. And to his underlings, he does apportions a section of the cake to keep them drooling for more. It will take the will of a saint not to succumb to such windfall, which can often means an unlimited flow of paychecks in the hundreds of thousands, even millions for the rest of their lives. Thus in the court of this "White Hair Raja", we see a phalanx of lapdogs among them the much despised George Chan and the incredibly sycophantic Alfred Jabu to name just two. It does not take a strenuous stretch of imagination to figure how this work out for them, does it?
Big timber corporations, developers, manufacturers etc. pander to his every whims and fancies (like newspapers congratulatory ads on his birthday, anniversary, for example), as timber concessions, licence, permits and so on need to be renewed every years. Errant tycoons ignore this idiosyncrasies at their own perils. His penchant for donning the western style beret and Ray-ban shaped eye wear on occasion of his rare field visits bespeak of his vanity, while his embrace of hedonism is evident from his palatial home unabashedly adorn with stately furniture's and ornate fittings.
Of late he has been grooming his son Sulaiman to take over the throne, thus ensuring the continuation of the Taib dynasty. A brother Ali Mahmud is also an MP, so is a cousin, daughter of his estranged uncle Tun Rahman Yakub, but now reconciled. Taib Mahmud is of Melanau stock (a minority ethnic race in Sarawak), and has planted a lot of his own clansmen in key positions in government and statutory bodies. Even the present Governor Tun Salahuddin, a Catholic converted to Muslim for the purpose of assuming governorship, is a Melanau, much to the chagrin of the local Malays who are much more superior in numbers.
Taib Mahmud has made a mockery of Abdullah Badawi's pledge to weed out corruption, but that the latter had tolerate this is understandable as Taib had always made good his side of the deal of delivering all but one or two of the Parliamentary seats in almost all the general election he had fought with, a point made all the more important in view of the last general election in March 2008, where Abdullah would have theoretically lost the election if not for the clean sweep of all but one of the 31 seats in Sarawak. This is all made easy for Taib as his war chest of millions from his booty and contributions from all the sycophantic cronies makes "money politics" the "business as usual" game to play come election time. That this self-crowned "Sultan of Sarawak" has earned the spite of Sarawak's general populace is putting it in a mild way.
Thus, Abdullah had left Taib Mahmud off the hook, in spite of the latter's continued blatant plunder of the state's resources. Who says there is no honour among robbers? Taib remains the sacred cow, untouchable, untameable and untopple-able as money politics will almost certainly rears its ugly head again comes the next state election in 2011. This wily fox will definitely have something up his sleeve when the chips are down. In the meantime, still hiding behind the smokescreen of his laughably shallow "philosophy" of Politics of Development, he continues to plunder, unhindered. Nevertheless, the pilots of his private jet are on the standby 24/7, just in case he needs to go travelling in a big hurry.
Anonymous2, Agreed with you completely. I always said BN=Taib in Sarawak.
He used BN banner for his own benefit. AAB let him off the hook with a purpose. No need for me to elaborate. The seats is just secondary. We all know what this AAB is.
So, why are we still beholden to KL? Why UMNO? Still cn't see their dirtiness?
Spread the message to the Dayak. Do not be fooled anymore.
Enough is enough.
We cannot let Taib and family strangled us anymore.
No more BN! No more under Taib's stinging feet.
A new government is necessary.
A new era to Sarawak.
We need to change the govt. Only problem is that, Sarawakians ONLY TALK NO ACTION.
You can say what you want Anonymous4,
It is Sarawak who start the political sunami before it hit Semenajung !!!
Anonymous 4,
If you want to see the government change,you should help us..NOT MOCKING OUR EFFORT !!
Taib has cancer but it is not so bad as his wife, who is on the verge of passing on.
If only Taib could be the one knocking off in weeks or months at most!
But you guys have to do your part too!
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