YONG TECK LEE IS A POLITICAL CHAMELEON!

Dear Editor,

TO our Most Valued Batu Sapi Voters. Firstly, we would like to thank you all in advance for your support for the Barisan Nasional and your pledges to vote the BN Candidate, Datin Linda Tsen, for the Batu Sapi parliamentary by election. We are indeed most heartened by your firm commitment and encouragement. On November 4, Thursday, please come out in full force to support Linda.

The BN wish to state that all pledges made during the campaign would be honoured in the shortest time possible.

SAPP candidate Yong Teck Lee is a political chameleon. He says one thing but means another. When he says Sabah for Sabahans, what he really means is Sabah for SAPP. This is very sad indeed. All the while when SAPP helmed the State Government with Yong Teck Lee as the Chief Minister, he did many destructive things, chief among them giving away valuable land to outsiders, the very people he chooses to attack this time around.

In a mere two years, a huge chunk of Sabah ’s wealth fell into the wrong hands.

A. NATIVE RIGHTS

When Yong Teck Lee says that SAPP is fighting for native rights, he is simply lying. When he was the chief minister [1996–1998], lands allocated to natives were actually ‘stolen’ and given to public-listed companies.

A good example is the Tongod Region where not less than 20,000 acres of land earlier set aside for native socio-economic projects, under the ‘Tongod Regional Planning Study’, mooted during the Berjaya era, were given away to a public-listed company. This is blatant Daylight Robbery!!

As a consequence, the impoverished and largely hardcore poor of Tongod lost their birthright (ancestral lands) and became ‘refugees’ on their own land, setting up ‘sulaps’ along the road bordering their stolen land, eating dust induced by passing vehicles, everyday. To add insult to injury, the mega companies that now occupy the ‘stolen’ lands, evicted them and bulldozed even their dilapidated dwellings.

Now SAPP goes around trying to champion the rights and native customary lands. This is World-Class Hypocrisy!!

All is not lost though. The BN government under Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Haji Aman is now trying to make the situation goof for the victims. Before long, once the paperwork and legal applications have been completed, the people in Tongod will be issued with Communal Titles.

B. SAPP/YTL GAVE OUT TIMBERLAND TO SHORT-TERM LOGGING LICENCEES REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES ON THE ENVIRONMENT

During the tenure of Yong Teck Lee in as little as 2 years, he approved some 265 logging licences covering over 300,000 ha (an area 5 times larger than the island of Singapore). These licences were given to cronies, associates, non-Sabahans included, and is clearly an act of gross irresponsibility at the expense of environmental conservation, sustainability and public interest.

The delegation of authority to approve logging areas given by Cabinet to Datuk Yong Teck Lee as CM, was well and truly taken advantage of and abused by Yong to reward his friends, cronies and supporters.

Can you imagine what will happen if SAPP were to come back into power?

(C) THE FMU LICENCES AND THE ABUSES

During the SAPP regime, not less than 1 million hectares of forest lands were given out to private and public-listed companies, purportedly for SFM-Sustainable Forest Management.

Unfortunately, in the lot of FMU licenses, dubious individuals with no capability whatsoever were also chosen. Consequently, many licensees failed to perform, incurring huge losses to the State government in the region of billions of ringgit.

Today’s failures of many licensees which have resulted in the termination of a number of them, is a revelation of poor planning, poor execution and reckless choices. Some of the licensees have never been even seen a forest area, let alone seeing a concession area that can be as big as 600,000 acres.

Why were these clowns chosen in the first place? Only SAPP can answer that.

The allocation of such large areas in one go for a lifetime (100 years) gives little opportunity for the government to review the agreements. Why was it not done in a step-by-step manner? For example, allocate a small area first and then expand on the basis of performance?

(D) THE MISC SHARE SWAP DEBACLE

Again, when Yong Teck Lee was Sabah Chief Minister, he approved a share swap deal whereby 32 million in blue chip MISC shares for shares in trading company North Borneo Timber Corporation (NBT) and fast-food company Sugarbun Corporation Bhd. MISC shares were disposed of at RM5.70 per share with a value of RM182.4 million and traded with three million NBT shares at RM32 each or RM96 million and 4.67 million Sugarbun shares ot RM7.60 each or RM36.176 million.

While MISC shares are now worth RM8.70 per unit or a total of RM278,400,000 today, Warisan Harta has ended up with a bundle of worthless paper. Would the real Yong Teck Lee come forward and explain this debacle.

(E) A PACT WITH ANOTHER GREEDY LEADER

After the March 2008 General Elections, Yong Teck Lee tried in vain to make a pact with the opposition Pakatan Rakyat. But the other party failed to get the required numbers. SAPP pulled out of the BN not because they did not have confidence in the then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but Yong Teck Lee wanted to be appointed a Senator and be made a federal minister. When he did not get what he wanted, he courted the opposition. He fights with his friends in the BN, now he fights with his friends in Pakatan. Even Pakatan don’t trust him. That is why they have fielded their own candidate.

Dear Batu Sapi Voters,

Let us give Yong Teck Lee the best gift of his political career. Let us send him back packing to Likas. Because that will be where he will be most of the time. Let us tell Yong Teck Lee that we do not condone what he did when he was Chief Minister. He will not be able to return what was stolen from us, but at least we can tell him what we think of him by rejecting him in Batu Sapi.

“Vote Barisan Nasional. Undionoh Barisan Nasional. Undilah Barisan Nasional”.

Regards.

DATUK THAM NYIP SHEN

Mantan Menteri Kabinet Sabah