USD15 Billion! – Taib Is The Richest Man In Malaysia
19 Sep 2012
He is the man who cashed-in an entire jungle of valuable hard timber.
He is also the man who controls all the land titles for an area
roughly the size of England, a position which he has systematically
abused to enrich himself.
Taib is furthermore the gate-keeper for all the state and federal
contracts handed out in Sarawak and he has privatised most of its key
industries into his own family companies.
So it should come as little surprise that the latest audit on the
Mahmud family, conducted by the Swiss NGO the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF),
has estimated his wealth at a staggering USD15 billion.
It makes him Malaysia’s richest man, with his illegally gained assets
topping those of the ‘sugar king’ Robert Kuok, who leads the Forbes
Rich List for Malaysias with a mere USD12 billion.
BMF, which campaigns on environmental and indigenous issues in
Sarawak, makes clear that this is a conservative estimate of the Chief
Minister’s wealth, acquired through 30 years of systematic and
documented plunder of Sarawak’s wealth and natural resources.
The audit, which forms part of a report entitled “The Taib Timber Mafia. Facts and Figures on Politically Exposed Persons from Sarawak, Malaysia”
was released today in Brussels to mark the visit of the Malaysian
Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, Bernard Dompok, to
the European Commission.
Environmental organisations have protested against any timber
agreements with Malaysia until the corrupt and unrestrained logging
practices are ended in Sarawak and in Sabah.
“More money than I could ever spend”
The report describes Taib as “The Godfather of a family business
empire” with illicit assets in excess of USD20billion, of which his
personal worth forms at least USD15 billion and:
“..describes in detail the business activities and personal wealth of twenty members of the Taib family, one of South East Asia’s most notorious kleptocratic clans with business interests in Malaysia, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries”. [BMF release]
The charity declares its audit has been drawn up after a
comprehensive analysis of the evidence now available relating to Taib
and his family’s business assets, land grabs, concessions and contracts.
Altogether, the assets of 20 members of the Chief Minister’s family
are analysed totalling a combined estimated wealth of USD21million.
These members include Taib’s four children, his siblings, cousin Hamed
Sepawi and also his two son-in-laws and brother-in-law, Robert Geneid,
who have been absorbed into the family concerns.
The report lends substance to Taib’s own boasts on the campaign trail at last year’s state election that he has “more money than I could ever spend”!
Time Najib took action!
This latest revelation raises yet again the issue of Prime Minister
Najib Razak’s failure to take action over this rogue Chief Minister,
whose greed and corruption has now reached legendary status even in
Malaysia, where political corruption is commonplace.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has acknowledged it
has opened an investigation into Taib, following numerous denunciations
and also numerous reports containing solid information on this site.
However, until it gets the political green light, it is sadly well-known that the MACC lacks the independence to act.
The PM did try to encourage the failing 75 year old to step down
before the recent state election. However, Taib refused to quit out of a
justifiable fear that once removed from office he could be prosecuted.
A public promise was extracted that Taib would move soon after that
state election, but with a Federal Election, G13, now on the horizon
there is little sign he plans to make good that promise.
Kuching Declaration
The exposure of Sarawak’s Chief Minister as Malaysia’s richest man
comes at an extremely difficult time for his administration, which has
been spending the last few days rubbishing the opposition’s
ground-breaking Kuching Declaration made on Sunday, Malaysia Day.
This Declaration
signalled key commitments by the opposition parties to show full
respect towards Sarawak’s rights of equality and autonomy, established
at the time of Independence.
Even more crucially the Declaration has pledged that a PR government
would end Taib’s land grabs, channel more oil wealth into helping
Sarawak’s poor people and end the robbery of the state by corrupt
politicians.
The Declaration has pledged to bring the infrastructure development
and standard of living of the people of Sarawak (which has given so much
oil to Malaysia) to the level of the rest of the country.
Yet in a series of public attacks Taib and his BN party leaders have chosen to dismiss and and scoff at these desirable outcomes on the grounds that they are “unrealistic“!
With a general election on the horizon, it has put his regime in a
weak position to capture the hopes and confidence of large swathes of
the a population, who have suffered 30 years of delayed development and
increasing poverty under his rule.
Now, while voters in Sarawak are in the process of digesting that
Taib and BN have no interest in reversing land grabs or increasing the
state’s share of its own oil from a scandalous 5% to 20%, this new BMF
report has added key information about the enormous wealth that the
Chief Minister’s policies have meanwhile brought to himself and his own
family! Key details
According the the evidence brought forward by BMF, various family
members can be seen to have been favoured over others as the old man has
distributed his largesse:
“Taib’s elder son, Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, a major player in the Sarawak construction, property and energy business, has been rated at USD 1.5 billion. Next in line are Taib’s Canada-based socialite daughter Jamilah Taib Murray (USD 1 billion), Taib brother and timber entrepreneur Tufail Mahmud (USD 600 million), sister Raziah Mahmud (USD 500 million), daughter Hanifah (USD 400 million) and son Sulaiman (USD 300 million). Timber conglomerate Ta Ann founder and Sarawak Energy chairman, Hamed Sepawi, a first cousin of the Sarawak Chief Minister is rated at USD 175 million.” [BMF briefing]
The charity believes that while much of the work is performed by ‘key
helpers’ to the family business, such as the Briton Richard Curtis, who
administers the family company CMSB and in-laws like the Canadian Sean
Murray and Australian Robert Geneid, most of the assets are kept
strictly to blood relatives.
For this reason the wealth of Taib’s daughter Jamilah, for example,
who is now a Canadian national and a shareholder in major property
companies in London, Australia, Canada and the US is estimated at a
hefty one billion USD. However, her husband Sean Murray, who has
increasingly taken up Directorships in all of these companies is only
valued at USD10 million.
“Sean Murray is a Canadian National of Irish origin from Ottawa. Sean studied at Ashbury College, Canada, before studying at Carleton University, Canada where he met Jamilah. Sean married Jamilah in 1987 in Kuching.185 Sean lives with his wife, Jamilah, in a mansion in Rockliffe Park, which was named “the city’s second most expensive house in 2009.” Sean and Jamilah are often seen partying with Ottawa’s elite, including Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien and his wife.” [BMF Report]
The report points out that Sean Murray has in the past alleged that
the Canadian and London property companies are his own family concerns
and that they are not and had never been funded by Taib Mahmud:
“Sakto, Sakti and Ridgeford are not and have never been funded by Mr Taib Mahmud….Should this allegation be made, our clients will sue you without further notice”. [Statement by Sean Murray's lawyers, Mishcon de Reya]
Yet, in a later interview Taib himself conceded that:
“It started 20 to 30 years ago. I gave money to my daughter…I got a gratuity and gave some money to her to start a new business, it thrived…. it is a property development company…. it got successful and from successful they go do business in London.”
The BMF report provides fascinating insights into the Taib family’s
corruption and wealth, along with evidence that will make it even harder
for the rest of Malaysia to ignore this shameful situation.
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