Taib SCORE’s Every Time – But What About Sarawak? |
| Taib SCORE’s Every Time – But What About Sarawak? Posted: 27 Jan 2014 04:47 PM PST   Manganese smelters are also pouring in from China – do they benefit Sarawakians or Taib? Every piece of investment information that comes out of the so-called SCORE project (Sarawak Corridor Of Renewable Energy) appears to have one thing in common. It boosts the wealth of Chief Minister Taib Mahmud and his family. In fact, the most obvious motivation behind the entire state-backed project is to enrich this family further and provide investment opportunities for the enormous sums they have previously gained from timber and plantation concessions and contracts, so kindly granted them by Abdul Taib Mahmud himself. One should also not forget that this whole SCORE project is being financed through unusual and secretive private bonds, raised at double the interest rate available on the open market, through off-shore Labuan. This means that someone is getting a fine return on their money, but no one knows quite who. The latest big project that has been launched in SCORE's Simalajau base is a planned phosphate fertiliser factory. This is a RM1billion investment, headed, of course, by Taib's family firm CMS. CMS is being fronted these days by the Chief Minister's favourite foreign fellow traveller of the moment, Richard Curtis (a UK national based in Malaysia).  Curtis, promoting the latest multi-million project of CMS in The Star Health and environmental hazards Like so many of the industries that Taib is eagerly welcoming to Sarawak phosphate production represents a major potential health hazard and environmental menace.  Proper controls? Who knows! It has long been a concern of NGOs that the regulation and governance around the adoption of such dangerous industries in such a very important and sensitive environment as Sarawak has been woeful under the Taib administration. Most of the businesses in Sarawak hold a vested interest for this Chief Minister and yet he holds total, ultimate control over the environmental and social regulations and impact assessments involved. By all judgements, when such assessments have taken place at all, they have been mere fig leafs and a nod towards greenwash. The Simalajau phosphate plant is a case in point. It will churn out half a million tons of this highly impactful substance every year, but what oversight has there been? Phosphate is a fertilizer and has extremely reactive ingredients. Mr Curtis has made the point that the new CMS venture represents the first factory of its kind in South East Asia. There is at least one good reason:
 Hazardous – phosphate production needs a strong independent oversight. It is an established fact that if phosphate is not handled with extreme care and professionalism, this substance and its ingredients represent severe potential risks and hazards to human health. What is more, the impact of phosphate fertilizer on the environment is also extremely potent and any escapes or negligent practices would affect the Borneo Rainforests of the the state. Take a look for example at the truly alarming list of hazards laid out in the World Bank's International Finance Corporation guidelines on the manufacture of phosphates: Environmental issues include "air emissions, wastewater, hazardous materials, wastes and noise" explains the report:
It goes on to outline the issues of human safety:
All this suggests at the very minimum the need for a transparent management and powerful and independent safety regulator before any such factory should be even considered for a part of the world where people live and where there is a sensitive environment, like in Sarawak.  UK Guardian related the problems in China over manganese production – now Chinese factories are re-locating to Sarawak….. Yet, these do not exist in a state that is run by one man, who is making family money out of the factory concerned. CMS applied for the land to build this phosphate factory from one politically powerful individual… the only politically powerful individual in Sarawak, the Chief Minister. Yet he and his family own CMS! That there has not even been mention of these issues in any of the press coverage about the plans for the plant says all you need to know about the unsuitability of placing hazardous factories into a political environment like this rogue Malaysian state. At the very least, local people should have been fully informed in advance of the issues and be allowed to consider the risks before this project was announced (fat chance). And there should be on-going scrutiny to be sure that Sarawak matches up to the stringent safety guidelines expected of the more scientifically advanced countries, which normally operate such factories. There is no evidence whatsoever of this due process having taken place under Mr Curtis's watch in Sarawak and there is little evidence as to who is running this factory on behalf of CMS. Why should people just TRUST Taib to appoint the right people to manage his plant? Jobs?  Locals have suffered multiple problems in the vicinity of aluminium factories at Simalajau As with so many of the factories popping up with SCORE, the local people seem to be at the receiving end of all the pollution threats, but not necessarily benefitting from any of the promised jobs. In the case of this factory the question is are the local people qualified to manage such sensitive products and if not are they being trained? And the answer sadly is "No". Taib has neglected the education of his people for the past 35 years. So, no surprise that all that has been heard talk of is the need to import tens of thousands of more qualified foreign workers from 'good Muslim countries' like Bangladesh to work on plants such as these. Why should this reassure locals that they will end up benefitting? An argument needs to be made for introducing hazardous factories to Borneo For Taib Mahmud to convince anyone about the positive aspects of introducing huge chemical and smelting factories into Sarawak, and damming up and destroying the river environment in the process, he needs to start coming out with all the facts. So far it has just been patronising waffle, fed through press releases. There ought to be enquiries, information and full public explanations, as Britain's Mr Curtis full well knows, not just vague announcements and statements about "progress and development". Because, we are not just talking phosphate factories. We are talking aluminium and manganese smelters, an industry that has caused horrifying health problems in China, which seems to now be keen to export this dirty industry to…. well Sarawak. Accountability, please and NOW!  Does Sarawak really want to import Chinese smelters without proper enquiries?  |
| Davos Message – One Leader From A Resource Rich Country Of Poor People Speaks Out Posted: 23 Jan 2014 03:47 PM PST  This post is also available in: Iban, Malay  Snowy luxury of Davos – will leaders think about the hot countries who need a fair system for their people? As the leaders of the wealthy nations and international finance community gather in snowy Davos for their annual discussions, one new leader from Africa has written an eloquent article in the UK's Guardian Newspaper. Guinea's Alpha Conde sums up the key problems facing certain warmer places in the world, like Guinea and Sarawak, whose people are blessed with rich and fertile lands and relatively small populations. Such peoples ought to be comfortable and protected in their lives, but owing to the corrupt activities of their leaders they are often anything but. If Alpha Conde of Guinea practices half of what he preaches in this article, then the people of that country are truly fortunate in their new leader, chosen from the first truly democratic election in years. He explains the misery caused by corrupt political leaders in resource-rich, developing countries, who steal from their people, rather than helping them improve their lives.  Alpha Conde – trying to do something about ingrained corruption and kleptocracy But, he also points to the critical blame that lies at the door of the greedy foreign companies, who pay them backhanders for concessions and who encourage that very corruption – enticing them with the most luxurious and corrupting aspects of the modern, jet-set life. Also, the greedy foreign accountants and lawyers, who help those politicians and greedy companies cook the books. And, of course, the greedy foreign bankers and 'wealth managers' who sneak all this money off-shore into shady accounts in the BVI and elsewhere. Is any of this familiar to Malaysians? Alpha Conde's message at Davos is, above all, to the leading foreign governments, who are allowing all this to happen and whose regulation is so poor that it is summed up by the phrase "deliberately turning a blind eye". The 'deliberate blind eye' of mainly western democratic countries with advanced social systems is what is enabling corrupt, stolen money to end up in off-shore tax havens. Here, this stolen money does little to help anyone, except inflate the prices of properties in desirable areas of the democratic world, when the greedy and corrupted 'developing world' politicians decide to spend the money on themselves.  What about OUR future? Baram protesters place a baby symbolically at the head of their anti-dam march Alpha Conde is now asking at Davos for these 'law abiding' western countries to stop this behaviour and to shelve the excuse that is always used, which is that "if we nice people don't move in then somebody else will". Who cares if the thief was nice or nasty? The point of gatherings like Davos is so that leaders from all over the world can get together and make proper rules to ensure a fair game for all. So it would be very nice if they could get on with it. The people of Sarawak might very well wish that they had a leader with the sort of ideals expressed by President Conde of Guinea below. For this reason we re-publish the full Guardian article below: At Davos, the west must help us root out corruption in Africa As president of Guinea I know we can't tackle this problem alone – corruption is embedded in the western institutions that have helped bleed our country dry. Less than seven months ago I was invited to the G8 in London by David Cameron to make the case for tackling corruption through transparency. I participated because it was clear the world's wealthiest leaders finally understood that to deal with this complex problem, an international response was needed. Cameron said: "We need to make sure that mineral wealth in developing countries becomes a blessing, not a curse. So at the G8 I will push for greater transparency alongside more open trade." Few countries have experienced that curse more than Guinea. For generations, internal corruption and a lack of governance and democracy allowed a few predator companies to steal the assets of our people with impunity. The Sudanese philanthropist, Mo Ibrahim, recently said of one of the contracts the government are now investigating: "Are the Guineans who did that deal idiots or criminals? Or both?" A good question. And one we hope to answer with the imminent publication of a review into the contracts signed in those dark days of dictatorship. I became Guinea's first democratically elected president four years ago, with huge public expectations. Among them, bring back the rule of law, return Guinea to solvency, and reduce the levels of fraud in our previously bloated military. It has been a hard and often bitter journey for Guineans but we are slowly starting to turn the tide. We have reduced our fiscal deficit to 3%, the army now accounts for 10% of our GDP rather than 40%, and economic growth this year is projected to exceed 4.5%. Yet there is a terrible irony in our struggle to bring our economy back from the brink. It is that Guinea is incredibly rich in natural resources – with the largest bauxite deposits and the single largest untapped iron ore assets in the world – none of which, until now, the people of Guinea have enjoyed. A small number of offshore companies, aided and abetted by corrupt domestic regimes, bled Guinea's resources for decades. A slow death facilitated by the network of lawyers, accountants and financial advisers sitting in offices in New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong and Singapore. No more. I am in Davos to call on western governments to put power behind their promises of transparency and protect the interests, not only of Guinea, but also the responsible partners who are investing in our country and playing by the rules. I am asking nothing that Guinea is not doing itself, under far harder circumstances than those of the west. Our central bank reforms mean that our economy must rely on cash budgeting. We cannot print money, we must live on what we have. The continuing overhaul of our mining industry has brought much-needed transparency to the allocation of contracts. We have involved the international NGO, Revenue Watch, to monitor state accounting practices. But we live in a global economy. We simply can't deal with the network of corruption embedded in a few key western institutions from a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. These corrupt practitioners operate from the west, but their practices are global and require a global response. Only tighter, more responsive and highly co-ordinated action between law enforcement authorities in both developing nations and the world's financial centres will be effective. Many companies and some governments already understand this. Some of the world's most respected companies are investing in our mining industry on fair and transparent terms. Co-operation from the US has already uncovered sizeable evidence of previous corruption. With international legal co-operation, Guinea will soon be announcing the outcome of an investigation into some of the most disturbing allegations of mining corruption in Africa's history. I ask other countries to do the same with their own financial institutions. Our country's past has not been one of which many Guineans can be proud. Our future must be. We are doing everything we can to create a state built on transparency and the rule of law. We do not expect western countries to solve our problems for us. But, starting with those few corrupt institutions they host, I do ask them to be part of a joint solution.
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