By DATUK THAM NYIP SHEN
Millions of hectares of Sabah precious forest lost forever
During the SAPP regime, not less than 1 million hectares of forest lands were given out to private and public-listed companies, purportedly for SFM-Sustainable Forest Management.
Unfortunately, in the lot of FMU licenses, dubious individuals with no capability whatsoever were also chosen. Consequently, many licensees failed to perform, incurring huge losses to the State government in the region of billions of ringgit.
Today’s failures of many licensees which have resulted in the termination of a number of them, is a revelation of poor planning, poor execution and reckless choices. Some of the licensees have never been even seen a forest area, let alone seeing a concession area that can be as big as 600,000 acres.
Why were these clowns chosen in the first place? Only SAPP can answer that.
The allocation of such large areas in one go for a lifetime (100 years) gives little opportunity for the government to review the agreements. Why was it not done in a step-by-step manner? For example, allocate a small area first and then expand on the basis of performance?
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