Thursday, July 15, 2010

Timber concessionaires

I will post online public documents relating to the dissertation "

"The Unofficial Appropriation of Rain Forest Rent by Rulers In Insular Southeast Asia Between 1970 and 1999"

that I have been highlighting in my blog. I will focus on those concessionaires that Taib's family has a direct interest in. This will not include those where they are directors but not shareholders. There are questions of propriety when for example the sister of the Chief Minister who is also  Minister of Resources (Menteri Perancangan dan Pengurusan Sumber) and the Minister of Finance sits on the board of a timber concessionary. This is a clear conflict of interest given that the Chief Minister allocates these concessions. However direct shareholdings and the economic benefit derived are clearer indications of impropriety.

I will then move away from information in the dissertation to other rent-seeking activity in Sarawak and yes, there is a lot.

UPDATE : Having looked through some documents from the registrar of companies, I can see that the directors have been changed since the dissertation, so have the shareholders and some of the companies have been dissolved (perhaps those concessions have run their course). The dissertation is from 2001. Unless someone does the whole exercise again, it will be hard to identify specific timber concession companies.

So I will move on to the shipping monopoply highlighted in the dissertation and elsewhere and then to all the other reports on Taib's very public wealth.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

J'ai appris des choses interessantes grace a vous, et vous m'avez aide a resoudre un probleme, merci.

- Daniel

Anonymous said...

simply dropping by to say hi