TAG 107

[Pilihanraya negeri Sarawak yang semakin mendekati itu tentunya memerlukan banyak wang kerana itulah antara sumber pendapatan kedua penduduk negeri itu yang sengaja dibiarkan hidup dengan penuh kedhaifan. Dengan menghidupkan projek Bakun rakyat akan dibanjiri oleh berita peluang pekerjaan sedangkan mereka sebenarnya sedang mengundang kemurkaan alam akibat ketidak seimbangan alam. Tadahan air seluas Singapura itu mungkin akan menjelmakan satu malapetaka yang tidak disangka kerana tarikan graviti bulan sahaja sudah mampu mebuat laut pasang dan surut mengikut keadaan. Inikan pula lompong besar berhampiran lingkaran gunung berapi dunia yang sedang mencari lubang dan rekahan yang lemah untuk memuntahkan kepanasan. Sudah lumrah alam kepanasan akan tertarik kepada kesejukkan kerana itulah yang menyebabkan berputarnya lautan dan bayu kepada dan daripada daratan dengan bulan sebagai perantaraan.

Rencana ini membongkar bagaimana syarikat CMS bertukar tangan daripada kerajaan kepada keluarga politik melalui projek penswastaan. Kontrek Bakun kepada CMS itu akan memperkayakan lagi keluarga Taib Mahmud yang memang sudah kaya itu. Terlalu kaya sehingga mereka mampu hidup dengan balak sahaja yang bernilai USD$12 bilion banyaknya atau sebuah bank milik mereka. Kerajaan sepatutnya memberi komisyen kepada pegawai polis dan BPR dan akhbar supaya mereka kaya raya dengan membongkarkan penyelewengan dalam negara malangnya kerajaan memberi komisyen lain agar mereka mendiamkan sahaja. Patutlah institusi polis hari ini sudah rosak-serosaknya.

Sila baca rencana tambahan oleh penulis ini juga di mana wartawan di Asia sebenarnya mendapat lebih banyak wang dengan tidak menulis daripada menulis. Kepentingan politik dan bisnes telah mengotori dunia kewartawanan. Wartawan sengaja tidak dibayar gaji yang memadai supaya mereka tidak menonjol kebolehan.
- Editor]

Artikel Asal dari THE AGE (MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA)

Terjemahan: SPAR-04-003

Politik dan Wang Semuanya Dalam Satu Keluarga Di Sarawak

Oleh: Michael Backman

Langkah kerajaan Malaysia menghidupkan kembali Projek Kontroversi Hidro elektrik Bakun di Sarawak telah digambarkan oleh media sebagai bermotifkan politik. Pilihanraya negeri akan diadakan bila-bila masa sahaja - dan projek-projek besar akan memenangi undi-undi. Tetapi ada satu lagi factor. Syarikat yang akan mendapat projek berkaitan empangan itu ialah kumpulan CMS yang berpengkalan di Kuching. Siapakah di belakang kumpulan CMS? Tak lain dan tak bukan adalah keluarga Abd. Taib Mahmud, Ketua Menteri Sarawak sejak dari tahun 1981.

Sememangnya, kerajaan Negeri Sarawaklah yang beria-ia sangat dengan projek tersebut. Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia meneruskan projek itu lebih kepada untuk memenangkan Taib dan kerajaannya serta lain-lain sebab-musabab. Parti Bumiputera Bersatu Sarawak pimpinan Taib adalah sebahagian dari parti pemerintah Barisan Nasional di Kuala Lumpur, namun rakyat Sarawak pernah mempunyai sejarah untuk menuntut kemerdekaan dari KL. Penggerak lain untuk projek ini ialah dari menteri Tenaga Persekutuan, Leo Moggie, seorang menteri yang datang dari Sarawak.

Projek ini mempunyai sejarah kontroversi yang panjang. Kerajaan Malaysia mulanya mengenengahkan projek bernilai US 5.7 bilion ini pada tahun 1994 kepada Ekran, sebuah syarikat yang dimiliki oleh Ting Pek Khiing (TPK), seorang ahli perniagaan Sarawak yang amat Dr Mahathir kagumi. Tidak ada tender terbuka dikeluarkan untuk orang awam.

Ekran kemudiannya mengikat kontrak projek ini kepada satu konsortium yang diketuai oleh syarikat gergasi kejuruteraan Swedish-Swiss, Asea Brown Boveri AG (ABB). Sebagai balasan, ABB dipaksa menerima firma-firma yang ada kepentingan TPK sebagai subkontraktor. Sebahagian dari projek itu melibatkan pemasangan kabel pengeluaran kuasa letrik dasar laut yang terpanjang di dunia dari kepulauan Borneo ke Malaya, 650 km jauhnya.

Sehingga kini, kabel sedemikian yang terpanjang - di antara Denmark dengan Sweden - adalah 100 kilometer. Timbul keraguan yang besar sama ada kabel yang dirancangkan itu boleh dilakukan secara teknikalnya. Hubungan di antara Ting dan ABB terputus, krisis ekonomi 1997 -1998 melanda dan kerajaan menggantung projek Bakun. Kerajaan Malaysia dipercayai membayar Ekran sebanyak US 125 juta sebagai gantirugi.

Projek yang dihidupkan semula itu meneruskan projek asal untuk membina empangan yang besar tetapi tanpa kabel dasar laut. Sudah tentu kosnya berkurangan tetapi pada nilai US2.6 bilion itu ia masih merupakan projek awam Malaysia yang termahal. Adalah tidak jelas sama ada Sarawak memerlukan projek sedemikian. Keperluan tenaga elektrik Sarawak masih boleh dipenuhi dan tidak mungkin berlaku peningkatan keperluan yang mendadak dalam tempoh yang terdekat. Kumpulan CMS masih boleh berfungsi dengan baik walaupun tanpa projek ini.

Menteri Tenaga Moggie telahpun berkata bahawa syarikat-syarikat tempatan akan diberi keutamaan. Secara kebetulan pula hanya ada satu sahaja pengeluar simen Sarawak iaitu kumpulan CMS. (Anak syarikat CMS Cement mempunyai 2 loji dengan pengeluaran 2.5 juta tan setahun). Satu lagi anak syarikat iaitu PPES Works, adalah syarikat pembinaan milik kumpulan CMS dan sudahpun membayangkan untuk menerima beberapa kontrak besar. Bank Utama, milik kumpulan itu juga pastinya akan terbabit di dalam membiayai projek empangan ini.

Kumpulan CMS asalnya adalah usaha sama antara Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), milik kerajaan negeri Sarawak, dengan jirannya Sabah. Kumpulan ini bermula sebagai pengeluar simen tunggal yang membekalkan pembangunan pesat di kedua-dua negeri.

Pada tahun 1989, kerajaan Sabah menjual pegangan sahamnya dan kerajaan Sarawak membuat untuk menyenaraikannya di BSKL. Dalam masa yang sama abang Ketua Menteri, Onn bin Mahmud, dan dua anak lelakinya, Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib dan Sulaiman Abdul Rahman Taib, membelinya. Keluarga Taib Mahmud menguasai separuh dari kumpulan itu dan ekuiti SEDC telah dicairkan kepada kira-kira 8%. Ketua menteri, Taib Mahmud secara berkesan memastikan kumpulan itu dimiliki oleh keluarganya dengan keputusannya mengswastakan CMS.

CMS kini berkembang kepada lebih 20 anak syarikat yang beroperasi dalam pembangunan infrastruktur, bekalan air, keluli, pengangkutan, pembuatan, hartanah, kewangan dan pasaran saham. Tetapi perniagaan keluarga Taib bukanlah CMS semata-mata. Balak adalah sumber utama kekayaan negeri Sarawak. Konsesi balak yang dikeluarkan oleh kerajaan Sarawak adalah lessen mudah membuat duit. Keluarga Ketua Menteri mempunyai pegangan konsesi balak yang amat besar. Ada dakwaan yang mengatakan syarikat-syarikat yang berkait rapat dengan Ketua Menteri dan penyokong-penyokongnya memegang sejumlah 1.6 juta hektar konsesi balak yang nilainya mencecah US12 bilion.

Penglibatan Taib dalam politik berkebetulan pula dengan pengumpulan kekayaan yang ketara dalam keluarganya. Beliau terkenal sebagai seorang yang mempunyai citarasa yang tinggi - khabar angin mengatakan beliau telah membayar US2 juta untuk sebuah piano yang pernah dimiliki oleh mendiang Liberace - seorang seniman Amerika.

Terjemahan: SPAR-04-003

Rencana Asal:

http://www.theage.com.au/business/
2001/03/15/FFXZYQ9W9KC.html

In Sarawak, politics and cash are all in the family

By MICHAEL BACKMAN

Thursday 15 March 2001

The Malaysian Government's revival of the highly controversial Bakun hydro-electric project in Sarawak has been portrayed in the media as having political motives.

A state election is to be held soon - and big projects win votes.

But there is another factor. The company set to win big from projects associated with the dam will be the Kuching-based CMS Group.

And who is behind CMS Group? None other than the family of Abdul Taib Mahmud, Sarawak's Chief Minister since 1981.

Indeed, it has always been the Sarawak State Government that has pushed for the project. Malaysia's federal government has tended to go along with the project more to appease Taib and his government than anything else.

Taib's United Sarawak Bumiputera Party is part of the ruling coalition in Kuala Lumpur, but it need not stay that way - Sarawak people have a history of exerting their independence from Kuala Lumpur.

Added impetus for the project has come from federal Energy Minister Leo Moggie, who comes from Sarawak.

The project has a long, controversial history. The Malaysian Government first awarded what was then the $US5.7 billion ($A11.3 billion) project in January 1994 to Ekran, a company owned by Ting Pek Khiing, a Sarawak businessman who Prime Minister Mahathir admires. There was no public tender.

Ekran then contracted the project to a consortium headed by giant Swedish-Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri AG (ABB).

In turn, ABB was forced to accept firms linked to Ting as its main sub-contractors. Part of the project involved laying the world's longest undersea power transmission cable from Borneo island to Malaysia, 650 kilometres away.

To this day, the longest such cable - between Denmark with Sweden - is 100 kilometres. There were enormous doubts as to whether the much longer Malaysian cable was technically feasible.

The relationship between Ting and ABB broke down, the 1997-98 economic crisis intervened and the government suspended the Bakun project. The government is believed to have paid Ekran $US125 million compensation.

The revived project allows for a dam just as big but without the undersea cable. Consequently, the project will cost less, but at $US2.6billion it will still be one of Malaysia's most expensive public projects.

Its not even clear that Sarawak needs the project. Sarawak's power requirements are being met and there is unlikely to be a dramatic increase in demand soon. CMS Group will do well out of it, though.

Energy Minister Moggie has already said local companies will be favored. And it just so happens that Sarawak's only cement producer is CMS group. (Subsidiary CMS Cement has two plants with 2.5 million tonnes combined annual capacity.)

Another subsidiary, PPES Works, is the group's construction arm and already it has indicated it expects some big contracts. The group's Bank Utama is also likely to tap into financing the project.

CMS Group was originally a joint venture between the state government's Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) and the neighboring state of Sabah.

The group started as a monopoly cement producer to feed the building boom in both states.

In 1989, the Sabah Government sold its stake and the Sarawak Government decided the company should list on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. At the same time, the Chief Minister's brother, Onn bin Mahmud, and his two sons, Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib and Sulaiman Abdul Rahman Taib, bought in.

The Taib family owns about half the company and the SEDC's equity has been diluted to about 8per cent. Effectively, the Chief Minister had decided to privatise CMS - and it was his family that bought it.

CMS has since expanded to more than 40 subsidiaries that operate in infrastructure development, water supply, steel making, transport, manufacturing, property development, financial services and stockbroking.

But CMS is not the Taib family's only business concern. Timber is the main source of Sarawak's wealth. Logging concessions, which the Sarawak Government hands out, are a licence to print money. The Chief Minister's family happens to possess significant logging concessions. Indeed, claims have been published that companies associated with Taib and his supporters hold about 1.6million hectares in timber concessions with a combined logged value of up to $US12 billion. Taib's time in politics has coincided with the apparent accumulation of enormous family wealth.

He is known for his expensive tastes - he is rumored to have paid almost $US2 million for the grand piano that belonged to late American showman Liberace.

Taib has important links to Australia. He graduated in law from Adelaide University in 1960. He plays a prominent role in promoting Australia-Malaysia alumni links and last year, Curtin University of Technology awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Technology.

Will Australian companies be able to play a significant role in the Bakun dam? It is unlikely. In Sarawak, business, like politics, seems to be something of a closed shop.

Rencana Tambahan:

http://www.theage.com.au/bus/20000427/ A25894-2000Apr26.html

In Asia, some journalists earn more by writing less

By MICHAEL BACKMAN
Thursday 27 April 2000

The media and, more particularly, business journalism, is critical for exposing the frauds and the rip-offs that can occur in business. Often, the mere presence of an independent, inquisitive and well-resourced media is enough to keep potentially errant business in line for fear of being exposed.

Just as the media generally needs to be independent of government to act as a constraint on the executive, the business media must be independent of non-media business interests. The problem in Asia is that it rarely is.

Banks and property companies usually are part of some conglomerate. So, too, are Asia's local newspapers, magazines and private television stations.

In Asia, all too often, media outlets are not the core business activity of their major shareholder but are there to serve the interests of the rest of the business empire. And if they are not part of a conglomerate, they are invariably controlled by a single shareholder, which also puts at risk editorial independence.

Take Malaysia for example. Its leading English newspapers, the New Straits Times, the Business Times and the Malay Mail, and the country's most prominent private television channel, TV3, are ultimately controlled by the Malaysian Resources Group, which also encompasses infrastructure development, engineering, power and property.

In the timber-rich Malaysian state of Sarawak, Ting Pek Khiing, one of the biggest loggers in Sarawak, owns the local Borneo Post, the See Hua Daily News and the Sinhua Evening News. Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a politician with logging interests, owns the Sarawak Tribune. And James Wong, another politician with big logging concessions, owns the local People's Mirror. No prizes for guessing the editorial stance these newspapers take on logging and environmental issues.

Hong Kong's biggest-selling English-language daily is the South China Morning Post. It is controlled by Robert Kuok, who has hotel, shipping, trading, real estate and other interests in Hong Kong, China and throughout Asia. No one should hold their breath waiting for the Post to publish an article that is, say, critical of Kuok Group's treatment of minority shareholders in its listed Shangri-La Hotel chain.

But proprietors' non-media interests are not the only problem.

In many parts of Asia, and particularly South-East Asia, journalists are lowly paid. Many in Indonesia, for example, receive less than $US300 ($A505) a month. The consequence of this is precisely the same as with civil servants: they are susceptible to bribes.

In Indonesia and Thailand, journalists routinely are paid by the organisers to attend press conferences. At the end of the conference, envelopes that contain money ("song khao nangsue phim" or newsmen's white envelopes, as they are called in Thailand) are handed to journalists, ostensibly for transport to get to and from the conference venue or for meals.

Attendance money has become such an ingrained part of journalistic culture in both countries, that it is now scarcely possible to conduct a media conference without the promise to journalists of money or gifts, unless what is to be discussed at the conference is so newsworthy that journalists will attend anyway.

Journalists are not the only ones to benefit. Press photographers also get a cut, and sometimes allocate a share of their bounty to sub-editors to ensure that a particular photograph makes it into print. Niceties such as alerting the reader that they are about to wade into an advertorial normally are dispensed with.

The practice creates a problem for organisations connected with foreign governments that wish to hold a media briefing. In 1996, the Australian embassy in Jakarta held a function to publicise the launch of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The embassy was not in a position to pay journalists to turn up. So the promotions agency that managed the event organised for an Australian airline to donate a return ticket to Sydney for a competition that only journalists who showed up on the night were allowed to enter. When the winner was announced, it turned out to be an Australian journalist. Fully aware of what the competition was all about, he refused the prize and had it redrawn. An Indonesian photographer for a local newspaper duly won the prize and was soon off to Sydney.

Appearance money paid to journalists is one thing but larger and more insidious payments are commonplace as well. It is remarkable how quickly big corporate fraud stories can be killed off in the local media in some Asian countries. In Western countries, when a big story breaks, follow-up stories appear for days, but all too often in Asia, when the story appears, journalists are paid not to do follow-ups, and the story dies. Assuming, of course, that the story makes it into print in the first place.

It is said that in some parts of Asia, journalists make more money by not writing than from actually writing.

Paying off journalists is not restricted to Asia's poorer economies. Media outlets in Japan readily accept gifts such as free telephone calls, temporary broadcasting facilities and so on from the very companies and organisations they are supposed to cover. The practice has become so ingrained that many large Japanese companies have developed patron-client relationships with particular media outlets.

Asia's media holds some lessons for Australia. One is the importance of the media's independence, not just from politics but from business. The fact that Australia's media is dominated by just two proprietors who increasingly have non-media interests does not augur well for the future. The very existence of media proprietors does not sit well with a mature and dynamic economy. Their existence, and the consequent need for media policy to be determined within the Prime Minister's office and for all major government decisions to be weighed in terms of what it will mean for this or that proprietor belongs in another era.

michaelbackman@yahoo.com