KOTA KINABALU – Sabah Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun claimed that he is unaware the state government has received any advanced payments from the recently-announced carbon trading deal.
Advanced payments to the state, he said, echoing Yayasan Sabah executive chairman Datuk Sam Mannan, have never been raised in the cabinet meeting.
However, Masidi noted that he so far missed one cabinet meeting as he was abroad recently.
“I don’t know… but so far I know it was never raised in the cabinet,” he told reporters after launching an anti-corruption forum at the Sabah International Convention Centre here, today.
In a press conference held on Monday, a deal signed by Sabah 11 years ago paved the way for advance payments to be made from carbon trading.
The value of the carbon trading was not revealed to the press when Sam announced the carbon trade deal.
A “service agreement” between Permian Malaysia Sdn Bhd, the Sabah government and Yayasan Sabah subsidiary, Rakyat Berjaya, was signed on August 6, last year, involving an 80,000ha-logged-over forest in Kuamut.
The new carbon trade deal is not to be mistaken with the controversial Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) which has now been declared as “legally impotent.”
Unlike the NCA, the details of the new deal such as the profit-sharing formula were not made public.
The NCA has a 70:30 profit sharing distribution from the monetization of 2 million ha of forests, with Sabah getting the larger slice of the profit.
Yayasan Sabah is Sabah’s implementer of carbon trading.
Meanwhile, Sabah DAP spokesperson on Sabah affairs Chan Foong Hin meanwhile urged Yayasan Sabah to make public the sum earned from the carbon trading.
“Whilst I am glad that the Sabah government has landed a deal on carbon exchange after 10 years of deliberation, involving 80,000ha of forest land in Kuamut, its particulars cannot be made secret under the excuse of ‘business consideration’.
“In the interest of accountability and transparency, the amount earned should and must be declared in the state’s financial report as part of the state’s revenue and be made part of the Sabah government’s annual budget for the benefit of all Sabahans,” he said.
He added that Yayasan Sabah was established in 1966 through Enactment No. 8 of the state assembly to "create opportunities for a more equitable distribution of economic wealth among the people in Sabah”.
He said Yayasan Sabah cannot truly be accountable if it decides to keep its dealings and payments a secret.
“How can Sabahans be sure that there are no secret dealings for payment of middleman fee or introducer fee to any members of Yayasan Sabah’s board of trustees?” he asked.
Chan said the foundation should also be open to scrutiny by the state assembly’s public accounts committee to ensure that the amount paid or payable to Yayasan Sabah is just and fair with no leakages. – The Vibes, August 17, 2022
