Sunday, November 3, 2013

RM618 mil SEB contracts to Taib’s son irks BMF

Winston Way
 | October 31, 2013
Swiss based Bruno Manser Fund claims the Sarawak Energy Berhad CEO has 'lost his credibility' and is ruining Norway’s reputation.
KUCHING: Sarawak Energy Berhad’s chief executive officer Torstein Dale Sjotveit has made himself a “tool of the Taib Mahmud family’s unrestrained greed and corruption”, claims Swiss NGO,  the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).
Expressing its shock at the latest disclosure that SEB had awarded Sarawak Cable two new contracts worth RM618 million contract, BMF said the “act has passed all levels of decency”.
Sarawak Cable is helmed by Chief Minister Taib’s eldest son Mahmud Abu Bekir.
BMF noted that Abu Bekir is both the chairman of Sarawak Cable and its second-largest shareholder with a 33% stake in the company (21% held directly and 12 % indirectly).
Yesterday it was reported that the Kuala Lumpur Stock exchange had been informed by Sarawak Cable that its subsidiary, Trenergy Infrastructure Sdn Bhd, had received a letter of award for two 500kV transmission line projects in Sarawak (Mapai to Lachau, and Lachau to Tondong).
Sarawak Cable said these contracts were ‘expected to contribute positively to the earnings and net assets of Sarawak Cable Group’, the statement also stated.
In a statement today, BMF expressed its shock that  Sjøtveit ‘continued with the corrupt practice of favouring the Sarawak Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud’s family.’
It claimed that already between 2010 and early this year, Sjøtveit had granted over USD 220 million (RM660 mil) worth of contracts to Taib family-linked companies.
“By granting contracts worth a grand total of over USD400 million (RM1.2 bil) to the Chief Minister’s son,  Sjøtveit’s conduct has passed all levels of decency”, BMF director Lukas Straumann said today.
Calling for Sjøtveit to resign without delay, Straumann said Sjotveit ‘has lost all reliability when claiming that he contributes to the progress of Sarawak’.
“Instead, he has made himself a tool of the Taib family’s unrestrained greed and corruption.
“Sjøtveit should feel ashamed for what he is doing to the people of Sarawak and to the reputation of Norway in Malaysia,” Straumann said.
Natives bar SEB workers
Earlier this week, native communities managed to stop the construction and survey works for the planned Baram dam.
On Thursday last week, the protestors chased out 30 SEB workers doing geological studies at the dam site, and set up new blockades on the access road into the construction area successfully preventing workers from returning and continuing their work on the proposed dam.
The following day, the natives managed to chase away another group taking rocks in Batu Uroh and Mount Kelulong.
Meanwhile in Long Lama, downstream from the dam site, another group of natives have erected a blockade, preventing cement trucks and workers from constructing the access road to the Baram Dam.
On Tuesday evening, all the construction workers’ machinery were moved out of the area, while the thirty workers doing the survey works left yesterday morning.

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