This diagram illustrates the “catastrophic” consequences of a possible “cascading failure” of the Murum and Bakun Dams. It comes from the official Environmental Impact Assessment report submitted to Sarawak Energy in 2008, but kept secret till now. A wall of water travelling “at high speed” is shown as having inundated nearly three thousand square kilometres […]
Sarawak Energy has lost a second Senior Engineer from the Murum Dam site to an un-expected and untimely death in a matter of a few weeks. As reported in the Borneo Post, Jabing Bujing sadly died in his bed shortly after returning from Sabah on 29th July. He was discovered by a family member, who
Sarawak Report has learnt that Sarawak Energy’s Technical Manager for the Muram Dam hydro-electric project, Frankie Chin, was questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) shortly before his sudden death last month. However, The MACC has formally denied the claim. Frankie Chin died on the night of 12th June after a short illness. A contact
Sarawak Energy (SEB) has been pouring out self-congratulatory propaganda for weeks, praising its own ‘generosity’ and ‘kindness’ towards the Penan people, who were thrust from their homelands and forced into resettlements by the Murum Dam. So just take a look at this – SEB’s transport provision for children aged 7-12 years old for their daily
Sarawak Report has consulted a top British dam engineer about the repairs currently under-way on the newly installed turbines at the Murum Dam. Dr Phillip Williams of Williams Associates, San Fransciso, is an expert in hydraulics. We showed him the leaked reports on the defects affecting the Chinese made turbines installed at Murum. We also
SEB boss Torstein Sjotveit has been forced to admit that the turbines installed in the Murum Dam hydro-electric plant are currently “not suitable for installation and operation”, but he claims SR “misrepresented the facts”..
Chief Minister Adenan Satem has predictably taken on the role of Governor Taib Mahmud’s chief business manager. He today stated that the state government will “have to” build more dams to meet the power demand for its industrial development and for “the people”. He thundered that he did not care about the growing international criticism: “If we
You would have thought that if there was one thing that SEB’s Torstein Sjotveit and his Tasmanian side-kick Nick Wright would have both made sure of, it would be that the Penan communities, who were barged off their lands by the Murum Dam, would have been taken care of…
Sarawak Energy boss, Torstein Dale Sjotveit, has focused much of his rhetoric on lecturing the people of Sarawak that he is bringing the values and virtues of Norway’s progress to their country. Read this news from Norway and learn that Sjotveit is merely a mouthpiece for Taib’s greed and a disgrace to the progress and
The delegation of natives who took the trouble to visit Europe to explain the widespread popular resistance to SCORE has received an arrogant rebuff from the Norwegian company Norconsult. In a letter that could have been written by Sarawak Energy’s own Norwegian PR disaster, Torstein Dale Sjotveit himself, the CEO of the major energy consulting
The Sarawak NGO Save Rivers has been taking its case to Europe and presenting the other side of the PR story to companies participating in SCORE. And today the native campaigners scored a notable victory, after gaining a meeting with the Swiss/Swedish engineering giant ABB. The company had taken on a number of big contracts
Another top international news organisation has endorsed and corroborated the information Sarawak Report has exposed about Taib Mahmud’s extraordinary and illicit wealth. The major news service Bloomberg/Business Week has just brought out an extensive analysis of the divorce case of Taib’s son Abu Bekir and what it tells us about his father’s illegitimately acquired global
Re-printed from original of 21/5/2011 In the run up to the recent election the Director of the Forestry Department, which is responsible for handing out Timber Licences, Len Talif Salleh, paraded before the cameras supporting the Chief Minister’s laughable claims that 70% of Sarawak’s forests remain “primary or intact”. Salleh posed as an ‘objective’ civil servant, the Director of
A new report by the global NGO OXFAM has identified the Sarawak crony logging company WTK as one of the main land-grabbing companies illegally destroying the rain forests of Papua New Guinea and stealing the lands and livelihoods of the native people. The report specifically attacks Australian banks which have been willing to turn a
A study by American scientists from the top California University of Berkeley has concluded that instead of building mega-dams, the Sarawak government should focus on small-scale energy sources for developing rural areas. The study will be presented tomorrow at the ASEAN ‘Renewable Energy Week’ in Kuala Lumpur and it follows another similar study conducted by Oxford University
In recent years the Taib family have worked hard to conceal the sources of income behind their series of multi-million dollar property companies in Canada, the US and the UK. However, we can now reveal devastating new archive information, unearthed by the Swiss NGO, the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), which shows that Taib’s own
Now that BN have got around to ditching Taib they need to ditch his unconstitutional land grab laws too. The former Chief Minister passed a series of amendments to Sarawak’s Land Codes, in order to help himself to lands belonging to the native communities. One such change in May 2000 obliterated native rights to their
When Taib Mahmud spoke of his retirement in years gone by he would tell bemused confidants “when I retire one day, I will run business”. ‘What else has he been doing for the past 40 years?’, was their silent thought. After all, Taib has for the past four decades and more abused his public
The company cited as the vehicle for SUPP leader Peter Chin’s pre-election plan to build 15 Sarawak schools has categorically denied any involvement in the project. The KL based developer See Hoy Chan has told Sarawak Report that it had no knowledge of the RM559million proposal, which was rushed through and approved by the PM and Deputy PM’s offices in the weeks just before the election.
Sarawak Report has acquired damning evidence of a deliberate vote-buying ploy to approve 15 new schools in Sarawak, rushed through just before the last General Election by BN. The project was approved both by the Prime Minister, Najib Razak and by the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. Directly implicated was the then Energy
Mega-dams are always promoted as key agents of progress and prosperity by the governments and business interests supporting them. Taib Mahmud is no exception with his pet project SCORE, which involves building no less than 12 more mega-dams in Sarawak, starting with 5 in the next 12 months. However, a new study by Britain’s prestigious
In his final speech before taking over as Governor Taib Mahmud lingered on his poor reputation abroad, which is clearly troubling him. He tasked Malaysia’s foreign envoys with the job of convincing outsiders that Sarawak is a model of good governance and then he complained about ‘malicious’ NGOs, who have nothing better to do with
Sarawak Report can reveal that the turnover on the Taib family’s latest foreign property venture in the UK has been over half a billion ringgit (100 million pounds sterling) so far and it is still rising. The Ridgeford Properties development in Bolsover Street, Central London, which comprises several flats, has now sold most of the
Taib has grabbed the Governorship, but now he is worrying about his reputation. In his outgoing speech as Chief Minister he chose to focus on the international bad publicity over his destruction of the rainforest; his rolling out of oil palm plantations and his self-enrichment in the process. Clearly, this matter has spoiled his promotion
Taib has made clear that he expects to be appointed Governor today, with an audience scheduled to meet the Agong at the Istana Negara at 3pm. He has informed people that he believes that this will elevate him to a similar status to the British Queen, dispensing advice and held in fond regard. And, of course,
