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| Sepawi (left) and Taib favourite, Awang Tenggah(centre) sign the Memorandum of Understanding with former Tasmanian government minister David Crean, now of Hydro-Tasmania last year. |
Sarawak Report
can disclose that the connections between Tasmania’s primary
industries and the Chief Minister’s cousin,Hamed Sepawi, are far more extensive
than previously publicised.
These
worrying links not only threaten the integrity
of old-growth forests back in Tasmania, they are
also working to wreak destruction over vast swathes of the Borneo Jungle,
as Taib‘s
hugely controversial mega-dam project gets underway.
Tit for tat deal?
We
can reveal what would appear to be a tit for tat deal,
whereby Sepawi, appointed by his cousin as Head of Sarawak’s state
electricity company, has offered a massive hydro-electricity contract to
Hydro-Tasmania at the same time as his private timber venture, Ta Ann, has
been allowed to benefit from subsidies and logging in Tasmania’s conservation
forests.
 |
| Ta Ann logging in Tasmania’s old-growth forest areas |
Sepawi is the major shareholder and
Executive Chairman of the logging giant Ta Ann, which was brought
into Tasmania in 2008 with the help of massive subsidies from the Australian
state.
However,
so far, the company has achieved nothing but losses for the state’s
forestry industry and is controversially obtaining its wood
from conservation forests.
Despite this, Tasmanian
Ministers have doggedly supported the venture and ignored concerns
about corruption and human rights issues in Sarawak, whereSepawi is a key member of a
demonstrably illegal family regime.
These Ministers have
also chosen to ignore protests about false advertising by Ta Ann,
which promotes its Tasmanian products as “eco-friendly”.
Instead, Tasmania’s
President, Lara Giddings, this
week accused Peg Put, a co-author of a recent report
on the forest damage and false advertising by Ta Ann, of “undermining” the
industry.
Terry
Edwards of the Forestry Industries Association of Tasmania chose a stronger
form of condemnation of Ms Put. He called her an “Eco-Terrorist”!
So who are the real “Eco-Terrorists” ?
 |
| Explosives removed from gangsters sent in by loggers to intimidate the villagers of Rumah Raggong in Sarawak, who were resisting logging. Unusually the villagers managed to fight back and confiscate the weapons. |
Given this labelling of Ms Put, Sarawak
Report would like to enquire about the definition of an Eco-Terrorist?
If it
describes an environmental campaigner, who threatens the public with dangerous
weapons in order to advance their cause, then this would appear to be
a highly libellous accusation, which Mr Edwards would do well to have good
grounds for making.
On
the other hand, if it describes a dangerous and destructive force that is
threatening to destroy huge areas of the environment for the profit of a few at
the expense of the many, then the executives at Hydro-Tasmania and their
political and business contacts in Sarawak must qualify better than
most.
Hydro-Tasmania’s deal with the corrupt government of Sarawak
It now emerges that while Ta
Ann’s involvement in Tasmania has been financially disastrous and environmentally
controversial, the benefits for the state’s hydro-electric industry, headed by
former State Treasurer and Government Minister, David Crean are extensive.
Hydro-Tasmania’s subsidiary Entura last year secured
an agreement to
co-partner three dam building projects in Sarawak, which form the next
stages in the Chief Minister’s plans to build no less than 12 hugely
expensive and hugely destructive dams across all of Sarawak’s major rivers over
the next few years!
 |
| Damned with faint praise – Hydro- Tasmania got the duedilligence contract to sign off Bakun‘s safety features. The report was less than enthusiastic but gave the go ahead ! |
No logical public interest has yet to be
deduced for the old man’s obsession with dams.
The newly completedBakun Dam, the second tallest in the world,
has yet to find an economic raisond’etre and has so
far raided the country’s state pension funds of several billions of
dollars to build.
However, there is without a doubt, a massive potetial profit
to be made by Taib’s own family industries from these ventures, which is a
motive that has plainly driven all of Taib’s economic policy throughout
his 30 years in power.
His
family company CMS has a monopoly over cement in Sarawak and all licences will
go through his hands.
Taib family business in Sarawak
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| Wealth – Awang Tenggah, who signed the MOU with Hydro-Tasmania, is Taib‘s latest political protege as Planning Minister. He has suddenly displayed new signs of great wealth – for example the recent construction of his new mansion. |
With
the same profit motive in mind, Taib has issued permits to log all but 5%
of the state’s forests over his period in office and has subsequently issued
plantation licences to cover much of that area with oil palm.
For
many of the interior tribes the consequences have been devastating and
their numbers have been decimated.
Taib‘s cousin, Ta Ann
Executive Chairman, Hamed Sepawi, has been one of the major
beneficiaries of those permits and licences, thereby explaining to a large part
his status as one of the richest men in Asia.
The rest of Sepawi‘s wealth derives
largely from state construction contracts and urban development deals,
likewise handed him by his cousin, for whomSepawi is
widely recognised to be a business proxy. Awang Tenggah is
also a known beneficiary of Taib‘s system of patronage.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister’s dam building plans are projected
to displace around half a million of the country’s population of 2.5 million
nativetribespeople,
who were until recently among the most unique and undisturbed indigenous races
on earth.
If their experience were to
mirror the problems faced by the 10,000 people already displaced by the Bakun Dam, currently a major issue in
Sarawak, the project augers badly indeed.
Murum – Hydro-Tasmania’s existing
link
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| Andrew Pattle – Project Director for the MurumDam, came straight from Hydro-Tasmania |
Now
Sarawak Report can reveal a further link between Taib‘s
dam building bonanza and Hydro-Tasmania. The Project Director of the
current major dam construction at Murum. Andrew Pattle, came
straight from the company in May 2010.
Indeed, Murum was a secret project carried out under
the auspices of Syno-Hydro for two years,
until the existence of the planned dam was revealed mistakenly through a
seminar conducted by that company.
The
project is now openly being carried out as the next stage of SCORE, clearly in
the absence of proper prior consultation. The Environmental Impact
Assessment was evaluated by a committee which is Chaired by the Chief Minister
himself!
Villages of Penan people have already been displaced to
make way for the flooding and the destruction far up-river from Bakun will add a further vast area of
devastation to the tropical jungle.
Sarawak Report therefore
repeats its question as to who best qualifies for the title of “Eco-Terrorist”,
the scholarly Ms Put, who co-authored a meticulous report on Ta Ann’s breaching
of its commitments in Tasmania, or the executives of Hydro-Tasmania and their
political supporters in Hobart and business contacts in Kuching?
Hydro-Tasmania signed off Bakun!
Finally,
Sarawak Report can also reveal that it was Hydro-Tasmania that further received
the lucrative contract towards the end of last year to do a
due diligence report on the safety of the Bakun Dam, in advance of the
inundation.
This blog has revealed
serious safety concerns raised by sloppy construction methods practiced on the
site, and has provided video proof of those concerns. In particular we
have evidence of a persistent practice whereby workers watered down the
concrete used in the dam and further evidence that there was
tampering with the mixture of ingredients.
Nevertheless, the report by
Hydro-Tasmania into Bakun appears to ‘damn the project with
faint praise’ (below). According to its own website, the company signed
off on its job by anticipating that “the risks identified by the
study may all be mitigated by various means and effort”:
Key
findings
The dam and other civil works, including the intake spillway and
associated control structures, the power house and the switchyard are generally well designed and
constructed. The risks identified by the study may all be mitigated, by various
means and effort, to successfully deliver a commercially operational power
station.[Entura statement onBakun]
Sarawak
Report asserts that the people of Sarawak have a right to see the full
details of this apparently less than fulsome due dilligence report
and to make their own assessment of what these risks referred to might be
and whether the State of Sarawak can be trusted to mitigate them by the
‘various means and efforts’ suggested.
We
demand this reassurance and transparency, because to allow an enormous dam that
might potentially be unsafe in any shape or form, to operate without
fully appropriate action being taken, could certainly risk the
worst variety of “Eco-Terrorism” imaginable!
Source : Sarawak Report
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