An independent inquiry over Sabah Foundation

An independent inquiry over Sabah Foundation.

I refer to the interesting report “ Yayasan Sabah Group driving nation’s future”  DE 28 May, 2017 and I quote “ Throughout the months of March and April this year, Score A+ Seminar was organised …. Score A+ seminar was held to provide an opportunity for form five students to better understand how to answer exam questions in preparation for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examinations.”

Reading such an extraordinary title as “driving the nation’s future” give me a world of pondering as what is this really? 

Objects

The objects of the Sabah Foundation, today operationally referred to as Yayasan Sabah Group was established through the Sabah Foundation Enactment No. 8 of the Sabah State Legislative Assembly in 1966 and several amendments thereafter. The objects are as follows:-

1.      Uplifting the quality of education and educational facilities as well as providing educational opportunities for the people of Sabah;

2.      Relieving of poverty; and

3.      Undertaking of activities which are benevolent and charitable in nature.

The Vision according to the homepage of YSG is A Dynamic, People Oriented, Committed and Caring Organisation.

The Mission is to uplift the quality of life of Malaysians in Sabah.

Please note the slight “discrepancy” in the objects and the mission as the people of Sabah now include Malaysians in Sabah.

The homepage of YSG also stated as follows:-The objectives of the foundation are providing education and educational facilities for all Malaysians in Sabah; creating opportunities for a more equitable distribution of economic wealth among the people in Sabah; and providing aids to charitable institutions and victims of natural disasters.  A beacon of hope, the Group to this day, remains the PEOPLE's organisation and keeps moving forward to be the best of the best.

At the end of each financial year, as soon as the accounts of the Board have been audited, the Board shall cause a copy of the statement of account, together with a copy of any report of the Auditor-General, to be transmitted to the Chief Minister who shall cause the same to be laid before the Legislative Assembly and cause a copy thereof to be published in the Gazette. (homepage).

While the beacon of hope is the PEOPLE’s organisation, much is still to be desired of YS in its role in society since 1966.  I hope as a start the audited accounts be freely available to any Sabahan.  Now the YSG is so big, is the audit really done by the Auditor General?

Dividends

Since the beginning, there were Sabahans registered to be beneficiaries of the “dividends” in several tranches of distributions and discontinued in the early 1990s without any official announcement. Many still miss such cash handouts especially in this few decades of hardship when YSG seems to be doing well with such tagline “driving nation’s future”. 

Standing firm on its mission to uplift the quality of life of Malaysians in Sabah, the Group has crafted an all-inclusive plan - the Yayasan Sabah Group Transformation Programme 2013 - 2023. The plan covers 11 initiatives.  The Core values are honest, committed, caring, dynamic, firm, resilent, result oriented.

The organisation structure has been defined as Sabah State Government- Yayasan Sabah- and corporate structure in 5 groups namely Sepangar Sdn. Bhd., Borneo Refugia Sdn. Bhd., Innoprise corporation  Sdn. Bhd., KKYS Sdn Bhd., Uni YS sdn. Bhd. However, in the website of YSG  only Board  Of Directors for  Innoprise Corporation Sdn. Bhd. (1988) is shown.  Surfing through the webpages of YSG, nothing much is mentioned of the other four groups except some directories of the many subsidiaries.  Why the incomplete effort to the declaration of result oriented amongst the core value?

Coming back to the Score A+ Seminar and the educational effort of YSG, are these events conducted in English (no mention of this in the said report)?  Recently several important calls by the Cabinet that we bring back English as a medium of instruction to enhance the knowledge consumption, what is the stand of YS on this as “driving the nation’s future” in the context of globalisation in our midst.

While it is indeed very good to know the way to answer questions especially at examinations to score high marks, it is equally important that students be trained or exposed to asking questions in any scenarios and not to be disturbed by recent slapping of participants at two events in Putrajaya and Pulau Penang for asking questions.  I thank God that I had been asking many questions from the floor in many seminars and conferences for decade, and never been slapped by anyone even the questions were not answered.

Also with the resources rich YSG, why only a few towns in Sabah were benefitted by the Score A+ Seminar?

Audited annual accounts

I wish I can have access to the annual audited accounts now to give my views on the financial performance of YSG like I do for Suria Capital Holdings Bhd. for almost 20 years.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there are lots of activities business/commercial/social/charity of the YSG through various subsidiaries whose accounts are not open to the public.  How are the 5 major corporations performing are unknown when there are vast resources in YSG?

The contributions of Yayasan Sabah Group to the State of Sabah and its people are not limited to education and social development. In the commercial and industrial sectors, it is acknowledged as a pioneer, leader, innovator and facilitator of growth.  Innoprise Corporation Sdn. Bhd. (ICSB) was incorporated in 1988 as an investment vehicle, cum management and holding company of Yayasan Sabah's group of companies. Its mission, "To Be the Investment Vehicle of Yayasan Sabah Group of Companies for a Better Future of Malaysians in Sabah" is a clear message of its steadfast commitment to fulfill its corporate objectives in supplementing and complementing the government's efforts to bring socioeconomic progress of the people. (according to the homepage)

To sustain its effective role as the main generator of funds for the Group, ICSB has expanded its income generation base from traditional forestry and wood-based sectors to include other productive sectors. In lieu of this, it has diversified into businesses such as tourism, agro plantation as well as oil and gas. (according to the homepage).

“Sabah Foundation Study Loan Full Settlement List”

Fortunate or otherwise, nothing much is mentioned about the disbursements of scholarships and loans to students to pursue higher education locally and overseas except for a blog titled “Sabah Foundation Study Loan Full Settlement List”.  Is it really true that 3766 lenders/borrowers as at Feb 2017 have outstanding amounts of various sums of up to RM150,000 ( total not stated) as far back as 1974?  The total amount can be tens of millions Ringgit.  Such borrowers are today successful rich professionals. Why they do not want to repay the long outstanding loans? What I know is that YS failed to follow up with the collateral offered in the application for loan by making a charge of such assets.  Instead, YS had tried to go for the guarantors who are likely unable to pay for what they never took the loan money.  The collateral would likely be the family’s assets.

Scholarships

The next question would the YS provide a figure of accumulated scholarship funds disbursed for the same period?  Some the borrowers could also had access to both scholarship and loans.

On the other fronts of YSG, it is deemed necessary to highlight certain developments that need to be reviewed as desirable to benefit society and consumers.

It has been 50 years since its establishment and the Group is reaching its pinnacle of success, achieving its objectives of providing scholarships and loans to needy students as well as students who excelled academically to further their studies locally and abroad. (according to the homepage website).

Yet YS cannot produce more home breed Vice Chancellors (VC) for the only Universiti Malaysia Sabah to keep our educational interest and priority intact in the next succession in the context of “driving nation’s future”.  Isn’t it there is a demand that the next VC be Sabahan as the two previous ones were as per Malaysia Agreement 1963?

On 6 June 1996, Innoprise Corporation Sdn. Bhd. (ICSB), the investment arm of the Group, bought 51 percent of the company's share Norsechem (Sabah) Sdn. Bhd. (NSSB), thus under the new structure, Permodalan Bumiputra Sabah (PBSB)  is holding 29.4 percent equity,  Hexza Corporation Berhad (HCB) 19.6 percent and ICSB 51 percent.

ICSB through the subsidiary company manufactures formalin and different types of resin for the wood working industries in Sabah. The factory is located at Jalan Batu Sapi, Karamunting, Sandakan. 

Is ICSB/NSSB doing great business as the sole producer of formalin as it is regularly alleged that much of our fish haul around Sabah have been “preserved” by this corpse item?  I had asked the Police at a Police forum a few years ago why there is great focus on illicit drugs while there is no regulation on the sale and use of formalin when all such products –illegal or otherwise- can both bring death to the consumers? Till now is it true that formalin is still freely available to the fishermen to keep their catches “fresh”?  Would the Government have a re-look on this formalin with proper regulation?

So YS and YSG still got a lot to do to achieve the noble desire of “driving nation’s future” especially in the arena of conservation and protection of environment.

In 1967, coinciding with the formation of the Sabah Foundation, the Ministry of Natural Resources was abolished. The government gave the foundation 3,300 acre (It is not 3,300 acres of land but 3,300 sq mile of land.) of land and a grant of 1 million Ringgit to fund the start-up of the organisation.  In 1970, Sabah Foundation was tasked, through a 100-year lease, of managing the 855,000 hectares of virgin forest. (Wikipedia).

Much of YS land of pristine virgin forest has since been converted to plantation land of largely mono crop oil palm and little areas for other trees like fast softwood and rubber trees when these are largely alien plants instead of endemic ones.  It is known that such alien plants are threats to the biodiversity very rich once in Sabah.

Environmental Education

Against the back ground of massive oil palm plantations owned and managed by YSG, and logging by YSG, YSG has embarked on environmental education as far back as 1988 by establishing the Sabah Nature Club (SNC) with the cooperation from the Sabah Education Department in promoting environmental education and awareness among students and as part of the school curriculum. In organising environmental education activities such as Nature Orientation Course, Sustainable Development Course for community leaders and other environmental awareness camp and talks all over Sabah for its members, SNC uses Danum Valley, Maliau Basin, Imbak Canyon and other conservation and rehabilitated areas as venues for its activities.

SNC memberships are opened to students and teachers in primary and secondary schools as well as institutions of higher learning in Sabah. It also offers "Friends of SNC" membership for the public. Since its inception, the club has more than 43,000 registered members. (homepage of YSG).

That appears to be good to a certain extent but our depleted rainforests would never likely to be recovered in years or even a generation to come as it is in a 100 years cycle for maturity.  However, SNC is only environmental education on the forests.

SEE Sabah 2016

I, as Chairman and cooperative Koperasi Pengguna Sabah Bhd. had proposed to the Federal and Sabah State Government for a Sabah Environment Expo 2016 (SEE Sabah 2016) together with other state agencies and major business stakeholders.  But this has yet to materialise despite my personal approach to the Chief Minister of Sabah on 19^th March, 2016.

It is indeed a great co-incidence that after the letter of mine “Even Chief Judge agrees our wildlife, environ situation critical” appeared in Daily Express on January 22, 2017 with my name missing thereon, and then Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman launched the publication “Sabah State Policy on the Environment” during the 14th State Assembly Sitting Kota Kinabalu on 12 April, 2017 making Sabah the first state to have initiated the formulation of the policy.

The policy outlines strategies and action plans based on five thematic aspects of the environment, namely land, air, water, biodiversity and social dimension.

However, it is important to take cognisant that our environmental degrading circumstance is huge on all fronts of environment that a little booklet of 44 pages in Bahasa Malaysia and English would be too little to deal with our critical situation.

The objects of SEE Sabah 2016 now extended to SEE Sabah 2017 would be a huge effort of mass support from the consumers and the public to conclude with an Environment Blue Print (EBP)– the first ever for Malaysia and beyond.  EBP can be into thousands of pages would be the official documents to guide and enforce environment principles strictly.

So I would urge the resources rich YSG as representing the State Government and with the blessing of the Chief Minister come forward to implement SEE Sabah 2017 to end the impasse of the deteriorating environment which so far seems to be endless without any solutions despite ineffective piecemeal handling of such critical issues.

Bankruptcy

Having written so much on YS and YSG, there was a recent allegation by an assemblymen in the Legislative Assembly in April, 2017 that YSG is “bankrupt” and denied by the Chief Minister saying  “YS had assets worth RM14 billion and cash totalling more than RM420 million and forked out millions of ringgit for scholarships annually.”

Isn’t it YS sort of a body providing the Sovereign fund for Sabah like the very rich Temasek in Singapore?  After exploiting the resources of 3,000 sq mile of pristine virgin rainforest for 50 years, we only have RM14 billion when we should have up to RM500 billion if it had been managed transparently and publicly accountable? There had been no distribution of dividends since 1990s.

YS did not really started on the right footing unfortunately when the first executive director was expelled from Sabah with prolonged litigation ensued.

Full independent inquiry

So I would like that the State Government call for a full independent inquiry over the performance of YS and YSG after 50 years. We need to verify the worth of YS land of almost 1m acres. Fully planted oil palm plantations is worth RM30,000 per acre? YS is on the threshold of “driving nation’s future” hence a proper review is much desired.

Joshua Y. C. Kong 30/5/2017