SPECIAL REPORT ON BENTA WAWASAN SDN BHD - Part 2

MALAYSIA TODAY

The total destruction of Sabah's rainforests:

genocide of alarming proportionsBefore we talk about Benta Wawasan Sdn Bhd, let us first review the extent of the damage to Malaysia’s rich and valuable tropical rainforests and who the people behind this destruction are.Tropical rainforests once blanketed the Earth like a wide green belt around the equator. Just a few thousand years ago, rainforests covered 14% of the Earth’s land area.In 1800, there were 2.9 billion hectares of tropical forests worldwide. However, over these last 200 years since 1800, mankind has been rapidly destroying this valuable forest area that took thousands of years to develop.Since 1950 alone, half of all tropical rainforests have disappeared, leaving just 2.5 million square miles (647 million hectares) of forests remaining and, every year, we continue to lose an estimated 93,000 square miles more.Over the 30 years between 1960 and 1990, 445 million hectares of tropical forest were cleared. The highest rate of forest clearance is in Asia where almost a third of its tropical forest was lost between 1960 and 1980.Today, tropical rainforests now cover just 2% or 1.5 billion hectares of the globe.It must be remembered that Malaysia 'contributes' to 70% of this destruction with the main culprits being Sabah and Sarawak.This is not a new problem though. For more than 40 years since Sabah and Sarawak joined the Federation of Malaysia, its rich timber resources have been exploited and mismanaged for the financial benefit of a handful of those in power. In fact, the government-owned newspapers and mainstream media have been reporting this for 20 years now, but the Federal Government seems to have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the whole matter, in spite of the exposes by the media and outrage expressed by environmental groups.At the end of the day, the interests of the capitalists prevail, in particular those who donate generously to the coffers of the political party in power and to the pockets of its leaders.See what the media has been saying since the 1980s, which have largely been ignored thus far:The Sunday Star reportThis is what The Sunday Star said on 13 February 2005 in its report called Dealing with new political equation:
Sabah takes bottom rung when it comes to poverty. Five of Malaysia’s 17 poorest constituencies can be found at the northern end of Sabah, said Kota Marudu MP Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili, the Minister in charge of national unity in the Prime Minister’s Department. He represents one of them.From standing proudly as one of two of Malaysia’s wealthiest states, Sabah’s timber reserves have long been over-logged. For Sabah, Prime Minister Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s recent appeals to states to hand out timber licences judiciously come two decades too late.Where did the money go?Sabah tycoons mainly, and the leftovers apparently went to businessmen in the peninsula, who in turn backed Umno at general and party elections.That was The Star talking, a newspaper that is ‘government-owned’.Daily Express reportSabah's Daily Express, another government-linked newspaper, too had something to say about the matter on 12 June 1989. Note present Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman's name, which appears in this Daily Express report.
STATUS OF DEWANIAGA:BUMI CHAMBER TO TAKE UP CLAIMS IN REPORTKOTA KINABALU, Sun – The Sabah Bumiputera Chamber of Commerce (SBCC) says it has engaged a lawyer to look into certain claims made in an Asian Wall Street Journal report, involving a company called Dewaniaga Sdn Bhd.The report published by the Journal on March 14 1989 and reproduced by Daily Express on June 9 and 10, 1989, was entitled Sabah Log-Shipping Cartel Defeats Rivals.The SBCC in a statement issued by its secretary-general said it will be calling a Press conference on the matter soon.The statement added that the SBCC Supreme Council met on June 9 and unanimously agreed to give a mandate to its president, Musa Haji Aman, and its secretary general, Sabdin Ghani, to attend to the affairs of Dewaniaga Sdn Bhd.Dewaniaga is a company jointly established by the SBCC and the Sabah United Chinese Chambers of Commerce (SUCCC) with the former holding a 60 per cent equity, and the latter 40 per cent, according to sources in the SBCC.The SBCC is understood to be concerned about certain sections of the report published in the Hong Kong-based Journal, in particular, one which reads as follows: ‘Although Dewaniaga was publicly conceived and described in press reports of the time as a joint venture between the chambers, Datuk Wong (Chik Lim, now Tan Sri), in a written reply to Journal, says that ‘it is incorrect’ to call Dewaniaga a joint venture of the two chambers. Instead he terms it ‘a private company owned wholly by individual shareholders (no relationship with either chambers) to perform agency work.’Daily Express understands that the SBCC deems Dewaniaga as its subsidiary and is compiling relevant information on this. SBCC officers and members are believed to be ‘very surprised’ at Tan Sri Wong’s denial that Dewaniaga belongs to the two chambers.Dewaniaga was set up in 1979 in an apparent attempt to create a monopoly on logs shipped from Sabah. It was set up with $6 million paid-up capital and its chairman then, and now, is Tan Sri Wong who also heads the SUCCC.At the time of its formation, all six of the company’s shareholders were senior officials of the SBCC and SUCCC and the company’s registered office was the same as the headquarters of the SUCCC.To be continued.

Part 1: Introduction