Pakatan Rakyat leaders have accused the BN-led Terengganu state government of running a complex timber syndicate to cream illicit kickbacks worth millions of ringgit.
They challenged the state’s chief minister Ahmad Said as well as Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Umno-BN coalition to come clean on the scandal, warning that they would be revealing more “proof” over the next 2 weeks.
At a joint press conference held on Tuesday, PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli and PAS assemblyman for Batu Burok Syed Azman revealed the alleged modus operandi used by Ahmad Said’s administration, whereby timber concessionaires were “forced” into entering share agreements with proxy companies of the state Umno leaders.
The timber concessionaires would then be forced to buy the proxy firms at inflated prices in exchange for the logging rights.
“These companies owned by proxies are often worth only RM2. The proxy companies are then sold at a price that is really high which does not commensurate with the companies’ assets,” Rafizi told the press conference on Tuesday.
“Coincidentally, the concessionaires, which are forced to buy shares from these dormant companies, are awarded logging rights in specific areas by the Terengganu state government. The money from the sale is suspected to be channelled to certain individuals who wield influence over logging rights.”
More details to be revealed
Revealing part of the details, Rafizi alleged that the Terengganu forestry department had on July 17 issued a letter of approval for logging rights over 1,000 acres in the Hulu Setiu forest reserve. The approval was granted by the state forestry board believed to be chaired by Ahmad Said himself.
“We succeeded in tracking down the the name of the firm involved in the share sale agreement. The agreement was signed on December 28, 2011 which is 6 months before the logging rights were approved. This company spent RM2.5mil to buy over the crony firm, Berkat Seribumi Sdn Bhd, which is just a dormant RM2 firm,” said Rafizi.
“We have more proof to show that this share sale agreement is linked to the logging rights granted by the Terengganu state government. We will release this information over a 2 week period ahead of the general elections, and in the meantime, we call on Ahmad Said and the entire Umno-BN leadership to answer to the public on this matter.”
