It is apparent that Datuk Johnny Mositun has either not comprehend Datuk Yong Teck Lee’s recent statement or chose to be ignorant of the facts presented.
It is the common belief in Sabah that PBS leaders as well as the other leaders in BN component parties may be in office, but not in power. The vehement denial by Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan as PBS President and Deputy Chief Minister that he is simply a ‘Pak Turut’ to UMNO leadership shows his concern and fear that this sad truth be known to Sabahans.
The PBS Youth police report against the Atama sketch, which incidentally was definitely a viewpoint shared by many Sabahans, reinforces this line of thought.
PBS was once undeniably a formidable opposition in Sabah until it decided to rejoin BN. The excuse given by PBS leaders then was that to effectively rid Sabah of all problems plaguing the State, one needs to be in BN. Sabahans remembers that this act of rejoining BN was rewarded with high positions in both State and Federal governments.
But despite these high posts, have the problems really been solved? Have the leaders in Kuala Lumpur even bothered responding to any PBS demands in solving Sabah’s problems? In fact, what has PBS achieved for the people of Sabah since rejoining BN?
The PBS President had stated during PBS 24th Congress that the PTI issue must be resolved by 2012. It is interesting to note, though, that Tan Sri Pairin stopped short of what he will do if it is not resolved by the deadline proclaimed. After the announcement of the NKRA’s was made by the current PM, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
There was uproar when the newly appointed Minister in charge of NKRA, Datuk Seri Idrus Jala admitted that the PTI issue was not listed. It was deemed not important enough to be included in the Federal government’s list of priorities. As an afterthought, the setting up of a new Special Laboratory was hastily announced with the sole intention to pacify the Sabahans but alas, to date, still no results.
This ‘Mother of all threats’ issue have been attributed by many to be the main contributing factor in Sabah’s abnormal population increase in the years 1970 to 2000 from 636,431 people in 1970 to 2,449,389 in the year 2000. Or an increase of 285% compared to the nation’s increase of 113% or even Sarawak’s 106%.
This highly irregular upsurge has meant that the indigenous natives have been displaced as the majority community in Sabah. Stories of how many natives, mainly KDMs lost ancestral lands, suffer forced evictions from forest reserves etc are becoming regular features in the news. Always proclaiming to be championing the KDM community’s cause, what has PBS leaders done to assist them?
The continued silence by PBS leaders on this and other pertinent issues affecting especially the KDMs has left them feeling hopeless and abandoned. To many in the community, their being left out to dry is tantamount to an act of betrayal. The saying that “it is worse to witness a wrongful act and do nothing than the act itself” is most apt.
For the record, Datuk Yong was only a full Cabinet Minister for a period of 9 years and that was 12 years ago when compared to Tan Sri Pairin’s 25 years. 2 years as the Chief Minister compared to Tan Sri Pairin’s 9 years. So, it is natural for one to assume the longer one holds on to important posts, the more one is expected to achieve.
The question now of whether PBS leaders like Datuk Johnny Mositun or even Datuk Herbert Timbon Lagadan may still wish to remain as UMNO stooges or not is of little consequence. But we urge the other BN members to reflect on the facts, to fight for Sabah’s autonomy and for what rightfully belongs to the people of Sabah. Edmund Burke once said that” All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing”.
Issues such as the PTI issue may be an old issue but it is one that is close to the hearts of Sabahans. Therefore, SAPP will carry on pressing this as well as other issues until they are resolved, unlike PBS leaders like Datuk Johnny Mositun who will happily dance to any tune played by UMNO leaders. - Sabahkini
MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek has issued a press statement which he posted on his Facebook regarding the Bahasa Malaysia Bible issue. He has shown his blatant ignorance of Christianity.
First of all, he said: “It is used in the study of the Bible.” For his information, we do not study the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God to us Christians and not a textbook.
Next, he proposed the Bible “be allowed to be circulated to churches with proper supervision.” As a Catholic, I take offense that a non-Christian like him has the knack to suggest that our sacred text be treated like some illegal book that needs to be supervised.
Further, he also said “we can be sure that the use of Bahasa Malaysia in the learning and teaching of Christianity would not be abused with proper supervision by the churches themselves.” Again, I am aghast that he has repeatedly used the word “supervision” again.
Has God died and made Chua Soi Lek the almighty to ensure that we Christians are being under constant supervision of the government and our churches? May I remind Chua Soi Lek that he has no right to put on his self-righteousness to call for “supervision” on us Christians.
Lastly, I can see how pretentious his press statement is. He ended his statement with “the issue should not be allowed to be turned into a political issue during the Sarawak elections.” So, as we can all see, it is just a matter of political survival for Chua Soi Lek and his BN counterparts. It is not his sincere, earnest hope to help us Christians to resolve this issue of the Bahasa Malaysia Bible ban.
So, Dr Chua, thanks but no thanks. We can do it on our own. We do not need politicians like you to be our champion of Christianity.
As HSBC’s Global Head of Compliance resigned in disgrace yesterday, acknowledging the bank had turned a blind eye to a staggering $38 trillian dollars’ of suspect transactions, thoughts in Sabah will have returned to the financial affairs of their Chief Minister, Musa Aman.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) report into timber kickbacks (a case described by Najib Razak as being “linked to Musa Aman”) contains a great deal of information about HSBC’s involvement in processing the millions of dollars that ended up in Musa’s bank accounts.
Likewise, Sarawak Report has exposed detailed information about a series of HSBC accounts linked to Musa, which were eventually closed in 2006.
So, no surprise that the US Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security has reported that in the period 2006-2010 the HSBC facilitated international money-laundering on a gigantic scale for drug gangs, terrorists and rogue nations, shunting the suspicious funds between offshore branches, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere.
Sarawak Report’s own extensive dossier on Musa Aman makes clear that the proceeds of Malaysian timber corruption should be added to this shameful list!
Timber corruption
What international banks have helped Musa and his cronies to achieve
The victims of this multi-billion dollar racket include the indigenous people of Sabah, who have been deprived of their native lands and hunting grounds; the taxpayers of Sabah, from whom vast revenues have been stolen and honest businesses, which have been exploited by this criminal corruption.
Meanwhile, the consequences of this crime have included the wanton destruction of one of the most precious remaining environments on our planet – which till recently comprised the world’s oldest and most bio-diverse area of remaining rainforest.
Countless species of plants and animals have been wiped out in an orgy of preventable greed over just the last decade alone.
In the past days Musa has once again unwisely attempted to deny all the evidence that has piled up against him. Likewise the Speaker of the Sabah Assembly refused to allow a motion of no confidence to be put to the vote – a desperate measure that plainly undermined the democratic process.
There have even been attempts to suggest that Musa has now acknowledged the millions that were passed into his Swiss bank accounts, but that he told the MACC that he was merely holding them as a nominee for his political party UMNO and his boss the PM Najib Razak!
Even if this unlikely scenario was true, do Musa’s defenders really believe this would somehow make him innocent of the criminal looting of his country’s wealth? Because if Najib and Musa were in this together then they are both equally guilty!
The role played by banks like HSBC and UBS in the looting of Borneo’s resources
Over the last decade, as the dwindling forests of Sabah have started to run out entirely, Musa Aman has continued to licence formerly protected areas and steep hillsides to be stripped bare of timber by his cronies.
His greed has completed the destruction of Sabah in the same way that Taib’s obsessive greed has felled the once magnificent jungles of Sarawak.
Two Chief Ministers, Taib and Musa - both wallowing in the wealth stolen of their people
And as we have demonstrated in close detail over the past weeks, Musa’s cronies have in return paid him tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks via his known nominees, including his “middleman”, Michael Chia.
It is thanks to the blind eye turned by Singapore and Hong Kong branches of two global banks, HSBC and UBS that Musa Aman and Chia have then been able to launder this money and funnel it, as we have demonstrated, through a series of off-shore accounts into Musa’s own Zurich bank account.
Chia - the dandy who turned out to be cack-handed at money-laundering
On numerous counts the manner in which first HSBC and then UBS have handled the millions of US, Singapore and Australian dollars sloshing around in Chia’s accounts, breached the rules of compliance that banks are supposed to abide by to prevent money-laundering.
Both banks should be thoroughly investigated on this matter and held to account, and prosecutors in Switzerland and the environment NGO Bruno Manser Fund have this week taken further action to ensure that just such an investigation will take place.
This week Bruno Manser Fund issued letters of complaint to the two major regulatory bodies of Singapore, the Monetary Authority and the Financial Investigation Division to alert them to the behaviour of UBS bank and HSBC in their conduct of the Musa Aman-linked accounts in Singapore.
These complaints cannot be ignored in the light of the fact that The Swiss Federal Attorney General’s Office has also in the past few days announced that it has now formally opened its investigations with relation to UBS, following the receipt of Sarawak Report’s dossier of evidence.
That case will have been further informed by the extensive information provided to the Swiss by the Hong Kong authorities, who originally arrested Michael Chia in possession of $16million dollars back in 2008.
Even, Malaysia’s own authorities have also been forced to at last acknowledge what other countries have long been investigating. Each day that now passes raises further questions as to why the Attorney General (Musa’s relative by marriage) has failed to act on the dossier on Musa that Prime Minister Najib Razak has confirmed in on his desk.
Compliance
Nowhere to hide - is Musa Aman's best excuse now that he was merely a 'nominee' for UMNO?!
Because, even if Malaysia does nothing in this case, the truth will surely come out as these beleaguered banks come under international pressure to own up to their part in this affair.
Key to Musa’s ability to siphon nearly a hundred million dollars of stolen money out of Sabah has been the willingness of banks like HSBC to turn a blind eye and to break basic rules on compliance (the very fault that will now result in multi-million dollar fines for that bank in other parts of the world).
These rules demand that accounts linked to politically exposed persons and accounts that take receipt of large lump sums of money should be fully scrutinised and accounted for.
The accounts run by Michael Chia, a known associate of Musa, who then passed on these sums to Musa Aman himself and provided income for Musa’s two sons, were clearly top targets for such scrutiny on both counts.
However, both HSBC and UBS failed to do so, preferring to continue to handle transactions on millions of dollars of kickback income.
In 2006 HSBC did finally close down Michael Chia’s accounts, but in a manner that raises even more questions over compliance. A series of cashier orders amounting to some $20 million were handed over to Chia in order to clean out his accounts.
Hard to trace - by issuing huge cashier orders HSBC was helping Chia break the chain of transactions and thus conceal the source of his millions of dollars
Chia used these cash orders to open his new accounts at UBS in Singapore, thus providing him with a complete break in the chain of transactions, whereby millions in kickback money had travelled from the accounts of Sabah based logging companies into Musa Aman’s Zurich bank accounts!
Equally questionable was UBS Singapore’s own willingness to accept these cash orders to open Chia’s new accounts. This completed the laundering of Sabah’s dirty timber money.
There are no secrets left in these transactions. Our dossiers are already with the authorities.
So since this is the time for confessions and apologies, HSBC and UBS should spare further time and public money and come clean on their dealings with Musa Aman as well as all the other misdeeds revealed by the US Senate Committee.
No comments:
Post a Comment