Taib’s Landgrabs – The Breakdown

Sarawak has given a thief all the keys to the nation’s wealth and he has been stealing from them ever since!

Sarawak Report

Bruno Manser Fund’s research team have done the world another favour.  They have conducted a careful and painstaking analysis of the leaked Land & Survey Department information that we first revealed on line here on Sarawak Report [click for land grab map and data].

From the BMF report we can now see clearly, in black and white, the extraordinary extent of the theft carried out by the Chief Minister and his family of Sarawak’s native and state-owned lands.

In the name of ‘development’ Taib has filched an area three times the size of Singapore for himself and close family members.  Indeed, the Chief Minister, who claims he ‘does no business in Sarawak’ is himself an owner of the company which has received most of all in terms of land, Delta Padi [see our previous expose].

Dirt cheap (or free)!

Just as outrageous is the fact that these handouts by the Chief Minister to himself and his family were made either for free or for a ridiculously low cost.  According to BMF, 50% of the land handed to Taib family companies were given out for free under the guise of “payment in kind”!

This means the poor people of Sarawak did not even get a proper premium for the land that has been taken from them, which could have at least paid for some compensation or basic amenities for the state.

What kind of government carries out this sort of theft against it people?

Kleptocracy

Taib Mahmud runs what is known as a kleptocracy, from the old Greek word ‘klepto’, which means I steal.

Taib is himself a kleptocrat, which means that his primary motive, from the moment he gets up in the morning till he goes to bed in the evening, is to abuse his power to grab as much as he possibly can from the people who have placed their trust in him.

Read more at: http://www.sarawakreport.org/2012/01/taibs-landgrabs-the-breakdown/