PBS RAISED THE OLD ISSUES, SO DON’T COMPLAIN

By: DATUK YONG TECK LEE

I am beginning to enjoy the series of rash attacks on me by PBS leaders. It is like a badminton game when I return a bad serve from the other side with a smash. UMNO leaders are smarter than PBS leaders.

They cleverly shelter themselves behind clowns like PBS Vice President Datuk Herbert Timbun Lagadan and Datuk Johnny Mositun, two mouthpieces of UMNO. But it is revealing enough for Johnny Mositun to admit that Maliau Basin was indeed signed off to an Australian company to prospect for coal by the PBS Chief Minister.

It is PBS which has repeatedly raised old issues against me and me only, and no other person. Examples, Saham Amanah Sabah, FMUs, Tanjong Aru government quarters land, illegal immigrants, phantom voters and so on. Out of the blue, Tan Sri Pairin talked of SFI, which nobody has raised for more than a decade. So, when faced with inconvenient truths like Maliau Basin, PBS should not complain.

I can go on with other issues like the 180% about turn on gambling licences, depletion of forest reserves, proposed reclamation of Tanjong Aru sea front, British Virgin Island company and so on from the early 1990s.

But it is not the priority of SAPP to get bogged down in the record of past leaders. Instead, we have been focusing on Sabah autonomy, the 1963 Malaysia Agreement, the Party ‘8 Points Declaration’O, piping of natural gas to Bintulu, fighting the coal power plant project, resisting the Kaiduan and Tambotoun dams proposal, land crisis, youth unemployment, illegal immigrants and a host of current issues.

The sum total of what Herbert, Mositun and now Tham Nyip Shen are saying is that I have signed off a few million acres of timber land for 100 years to cronies, all within 3 weeks of becoming Chief Minster. This means I was able to design the sustainable forest management plans, prepare the agreements, sign the agreements all behind the back of cabinet ministers in less than a month. This of course is not true.

There is nothing to stop this government from disclosing the contents of the Sustainable Forest Management Licence Agreements. The agreements will reveal that “the rights and privileges of the natives under the existing laws and regulations, including Customary Law, are not affected or limited in any respect under these Agreement”.

There is no legal basis for the authorities to evict natives from their traditional villages within forest reserves, something that is troubling the UPKO Deputy President, Datuk Wilfred Bumburing.

At the same time, the Chief Minister will care to inform the people on the current forestry policy and the main logging companies and their shareholders. What has happened to the Timber Association of Sabah (TAS)? Who are the few loggers these days?

After the 1999 State general elections, when I was no longer a member of the Cabinet, I had proposed to the Legislative Assembly to form an All-Party Select Committee on Forestry Policy to review the management of our forest resources, including the SFMLAs.

That would have revisited the FMUs issue and if anything were wrong. But my proposal was never taken up. I was no longer in Cabinet. Most of the Cabinet of 1994–99 were still Ministers. They have had ample opportunity and time to review, investigate and correct any wrongs. They did not. Instead, the government proceeded with logging in Benta Wawasan areas of Yayasan Sabah.

Other PBS allegations against me amount to me manipulating SAS investments in the stock market, take part in the manufacture of fake ICs, phantom voters, approved the Begaraya 60,000 acres and other crimes. The allegations, if true, would mean I was able to back-date documents and forge signatures of other government officials after I was no longer in government.

Does PBS really believe that Yong Teck Lee is responsible for all these? Surely, after 6 years in the BN government, PBS and its leaders must know who the real culprits are. On fake ICs for instance, PBS witnesses in law courts have testified that SAPP leaders are not involved.

But PBS has chosen to shelter the real culprits. In doing so, PBS has become an accomplice in the manufacture of fake ICs and the cover up of the rampant issuance of Mykads to illegal immigrants that has picked up pace in Sabah in recent years. The people who will suffer the most from this population boom are the people who had supported PBS before.