‘Musa saved YS from Shafie’

(Daily Express) – An attempt by Parti Warisan Sabah to falsely depict Chief Minister Tan Sri Musa Aman as ripping off Yayasan Sabah and treating it as his personal property has backfired with potentially damaging consequences for the opposition party in Sabah with general election two days away.

Two key officials who were witnesses to a RM350 million deal said the exact opposite was what really happened in 1996, with Musa the then Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees, getting the blessing of the then Prime Minister, to hurriedly stop a public listed company of which Warisan President Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal was Chairman, from laying its hands on Yayasan Sabah’s’timber concessions.

Former Yayasan Sabah Deputy Director Tengku Datuk Zainal Adlin and the then former CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of its investment arm, Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd, Datuk Hj Abdul Kadir Hj Damsal, said Yayasan Sabah would have been unable to meet its obligations of providing economic and educational facilities as well as equitable sharing of the State’s wealth among Sabahans had not Musa called off the controversial deal between ICSB and North Borneo Timbers Bhd (NBT).

Hj Abduk Kadir was appointed to the ICSB post on the recommendation of then CM Tun Sakaran and consented to by the then PM while Tengku Adlin’s tenure at Yayasan Sabah goes back to the time of Mustapha.

“Musa deserves more credit than what we give him for this act of bravery. Acting on his conscience and seeing that he needed federal backing in order to call off the deal, he decided to alert the then PM who was alarmed and instructed him to immediately fly back to Sabah to stop it,” they said [see separate accompanying report].

“In fact, it will not be wrong to say that Yayasan Sabah may not be existing today if the deal had gone through because it would have been unable to fulfil the very purpose for which it was set up by then CM Tun Datu Mustapha in 1967,” they said.

This is because the Foundation’s various assistance programmes to Sabahans are dependent on revenue derived from its assets which are mostly placed under the care of ICSB. Hence, ICSB appears to have been the main target of the deal.

“If the deal had not been called off, technically all of Sabah’s forest concessions would have been controlled by NBT. The efforts that went into stopping the deal was like a real drama,” said Tengku Adlin.

He and Abdul Kadir were breaking their silence on the deal, an agreement signed on Aug. 5, 1995, whereby ICSB was supposed to acquire NBT via a reverse takeover. They said they decided to reveal what went behind the deal only because it again became an issue in the current general election campaign.

“It was important for the public to know what really happened.”

“The then BOT (Board of Trustees) was going to assign 100,000 hectares of logged over forest reserve for 100 years concession through NBT. It would have allowed NBT access to 100,000 hectares of timber land owned by Rakyat Berjaya Sdn Bhd, an ICSB subsidiary, for RM150 million, they said.

Also under the deal, NBT which at that time already owned 40pc of Sabah Softwoods Sdn Bhd, would acquire the remaining 60pc stake from ICSB, supposedly to allow it to embark on large-scale growing of fast growing timber, while the company, in turn, would settle the RM350m new shares of RM1 each at an issue price of RM1 per share.

The move would have given ICSB a 62.5pc stake in NBT with the remaining 37.5pc open to the public.

Musa cited “valuation problems” for the Yayasan Sabah Executive Committee being unable to complete the deal, besides it being also in the best interests of the foundation and ICSB.

Musa also took advantage of the time lapse to act and declared that NBT’s expertise was not needed in any large scale planting of fast growing timber as Yayasan Sabah’s own team at the Luasong centre near Tawau was equally capable of carrying it out.

The acquisition was to be via the purchase of 9m shares of RM1 each, representing 60pc of the issued and paid-up capital of ICSB for RM200m.

“What it would have amounted to is that Yayasan Sabah will be losing all its core timber assets for a paltry RM350m.

“This is what made Musa furious. What also disappointed him was that the deal involved NBT, of which Shafie was the Chairman, who should have known better that it was tantamount to the Foundation being literally sold lock, stock and barrel for a mere RM350m,” he said.

Musa also foresaw other problems and wanted to protect the image of Tan Sri Sakaran Dandai, who was Shafie’s uncle and the then Chief Minister. By virtue of the post Sakaran is automatically also the Foundation and ICSB Chairman, raising the issues of conflict of interest even though he may end up being innocently dragged into the picture.

“That was how close Sabahans came to losing their most prized possession set up by Mustapha where every Sabahan born and not yet born is a stakeholder,” they said.

Tengku Adlin said being one of the key personnel as Deputy Director, it was incumbent upon him to inform the Board of Trustees (BOT) of Yayasan Sabah about the deal that was approved by the then State Cabinet.

It was not clear whether the Cabinet had been properly briefed on the deal.

He explained that the matter was brought to the Board several times and Musa rejected it every time.

It was then brought to the Cabinet for endorsement but the final custodian was the BOT and, hence, was rejected.

The Government’s decision still had to be endorsed by the BOT because the matter involved two different legal entities – the State Government and Yayasan Sabah, which is the custodian of Sabah’s forests.

Both must agree to the deal.

“Mana boleh? How can the BOT assign the timber land to others for 100 years? I strongly objected and raised the objection to Musa. The decision should not have been made in the first place.

“Under the circumstances, I did a paper and passed it to Musa for objection on various grounds, namely in the interest of forest management, the point of law and the principle of ethics whereby the decision was not right,” Tengku Adlin, who also sat on the BOT, recalled.

He quipped, “Although I was a civil servant, I had to ‘fight’ the Government to ‘save’ the Government of the day.”

He also remembered that a meeting of the BOT was convened to endorse the Cabinet’s decision.

But whether coincidentally or not, they chose a day when Musa was away in Penang.

“It was to be held at 9am the next day. I contacted Musa as we feared that he could not come back on time to raise his objection. Fortunately, he was able to take a connecting flight from KL to KK (upon arrival in KL from Penang) and arrived in KK on the first flight.

“Musa appeared at the BOT meeting and raised his objections. He fought it out at the BOT level.

No way could the BOT agree to the NBT-ICSB deal. The rest is history,” he said.

For saving the Foundation, Musa was faced with a legal suit for RM184 million filed by Aman Takzim Sdn Bhd, a major NBT shareholder, as well as a police and an Official Secrets Act (OSA) report lodged against him.

The suit contended that Musa’s statement on calling off the deal on grounds that “it was not in the best interest of Sabahans” caused NBT to suffer huge losses in the share market.

The police report contended that Musa had abused his position to publicly disclose classified information without prior approval from the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and ICSB’s Board of Directors.

The cartoon which appeared on the Warisan Anak Sabah facebook and went viral saw a police and fake news report being lodged by Gaum (Gerakan Akar Umbi Umno Malaysia) against a suspected Warisan supporter, Ignatius Sipaun. It showed a cartoon character resembling Musa climbing the Yayasan Sabah building with the words “Yayasan Sabah Saya Punya” (Yayasan Sabah is mine) with one hand throwing away money.