SANDAKAN – It is alleged that Sabah has already reaped the benefits of carbon trading despite the controversial nature conservation agreement (NCA).
This was revealed yesterday by the interim Sabah Climate Change Committee here, which said that payment came from monetising 80,000ha of totally protected areas under Yayasan Sabah.
The committee also claimed a deal was penned 11 years ago but a cover of the new “Service Agreement” signed August 6 last year was presented to the media in yesterday’s event.
The interim Sabah Climate Change Committee members comprises former Roundtable on Sustainable Oil Palm secretary-general Datuk Darell Webber, Land Empowerment Animals People’s Cynthia Ong, biologist Datuk John Payne, and WWF’s Robecca Jumin.
The committee was formed on August 1 this year and will remain active until July 31 next year.
Yayasan Sabah was also named as the local partner implementer of the carbon trading deal on March 5 this year.
Yayasan Sabah executive chairman Datuk Sam Mannan said the details of the carbon trade deal were not revealed until now and were only made public now due to the profits generated.
It was noted in the Service Agreement that the state along with a subsidiary of the Yayasan Sabah company, Rakyat Berjaya Sdn Bhd, has entered into a deal with Permian Malaysia Sdn Bhd for carbon trading.
“The agreement will be for 30 years, starting from August 6 last year, and involves an area in Kuamut, a logged-over forest, belonging to Yayasan Sabah,” he said while refusing to reveal how much had been generated from the deal.
“The inception of the carbon trade took some 11 years involving much deliberation. Finally, it came about and it promised the best of returns, with some paid in advance.”
He added that the buyer of Sabah’s carbon credits was a UK-based firm and that it won the Best Carbon Project in the Tropics in 2022.
Permian Malaysia is purportedly the buyer’s incorporated firm based in Malaysia, said Sam, while not revealing the profit-sharing ratio in the deal.
But in a January conference held in Sabah, Sam said publicly that “our partner in the UK would give Sabah 100 million in two tranches, 50 million this year, and 50 million next year.”
Neither Sam nor the committee revealed the currency involved.
This revelation came following the controversy involving the NCA, which was advocated by Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan.
The NCA deal, which made headlines in March this year, was kept under wraps until environmental news site Mongabay broke the story last November.
The NCA deal is a 70:30 deal, with Sabah getting the larger share and a Singapore-based company, Hoch Standard Ltd, getting the smaller one. Hoch Standard was claimed to have a paid-up capital of US$10 million.
But the deal was described as legally impotent by Sabah Attorney-General Datuk Nor Asiah Mohd Yusof and thus, could not be implemented.
Kitingan was forced to apologise before the Sabah assembly over his claim that Hoch Standard has a paid-up capital of US$10 million (RM44.5 million), saying he had mistaken it with the company’s total investment value.
His apology was read by Sabah Speaker Datuk Kadzim M. Yahya. – The Vibes, August 15, 2022.
