Warisan urges Sabah govt to produce carbon trading deal white paper

 

Warisan today called on the GRS-led Sabah government to produce a white paper on the Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) between the administration and a Singapore-based company.

Its secretary-general Loretto Padua Jr (above) said it has now come to a stage where the Sabah government should take up collective responsibility instead of having deputy chief minister Jeffrey Kitingan embark on a solo mission to explain the matter.

"Since Kitingan has said that all these matters have already been agreed upon by the federal government and the green light was given to the chief minister, then automatically the concept and policy of 'collective responsibility' of the Sabah state cabinet is activated.

"Now that we know the state cabinet was aware of this agreement since the very beginning, we want the state government to produce a white paper on the NCA and no longer rely on Kitingan alone to give explanation," Loretto said in a statement.

The NCA is an agreement involving carbon credit trading which is a market-based system to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming by providing a financial incentive.

Inked on Oct 30 last year, the NCA involves giving 30 percent of Sabah's carbon credit sales revenue to Singaporean firm Hoch Standard Private Limited while the Sabah government keeps 70 percent.

According to an expose by Al-Jazeera, Hoch Standard was a "shell company" owned by a firm in the British Virgin Islands with a paid-up capital of US$1,000 (RM4,180).

The 100-year deal applies to two million hectares of forest. This is equivalent to the size of 2.8 million football fields.

The government did not announce the signing of the deal. It only became public knowledge in early November 2021 when environmental news website Mongabay published an article on it.

Loretto also chided Kitingan over the latter's statement that Sabah has to act quickly so that it would not lose grip on the carbon trade deal.

He said that it does not justify Kitingan advising and representing the Sabah government to get involved in an agreement quietly.

"If Kitingan really wanted to act quickly in the truest context, he should have done it using his capacity as the deputy chief minister, who has access to the federal government to inform Sabahans about the possibility of Sabah losing its rights to such a huge revenue due to a law that is to be introduced by Putrajaya on carbon trading.

"Then he can bring the issue to the legislative assembly for debate, and Warisan will definitely support any motion that serves to defend Sabah's rights." - Mkini