Taib Steals His Electricity – Exclusive Expose!
Saturday, March 26th, 2011 GMT Taib's residence in Demak Jaya - his sister and son Abu Bekir have houses next door
At a time when people are struggling to cope with the rising electricity costs, Sarawak Report has established that the Chief Minister thieves electricity to keep down his own bills ! This astonishing information came to us from senior insiders, who are in a good position to know what is happening in Taib’s household. We have subsequently obtained corroborative evidence from the chief technician in charge of maintenance at his grand residence at Demak Jaya. What we have learnt is that the Chief Minister has deliberately installed a secret, subterranian electricity cable, which by-passes the meter outside his house. The cable links the mains directly to the line entering the house. This means that while some of the supply still travels through the meter at least half of it does not, thereby slashing Taib’s electricity bill!
How mean is greed?
Huge residence, means huge electricity bills! Given the legendary wealth of Taib Mahmud, the idea that he should go to these lengths to avoid such a relatively small outlay as the monthly electricity bill seems staggering. But, as Taib has pointed out himself, he is not used to paying out money or even bothering to have it on his person. All his family deals are funded by others in return for his political patronage. Since the Taibs expect to take, not give, it must make regular bills like the rest of us pay seem something of an outrageous imposition! However, we should bear in mind that Taib has already compensated for the annoyance of having to pay for electricity. There was plenty of comment some years back when the State Parliament voted through a handsome annual allowance to assist in the Chief Minister’s electricity bills, presumably on the understanding that he has to do so much entertaining in his huge house. By contrast, Sarawak Report is mindful of the many people throughout Sarawak who suffer from the harsh policy of the State-owned Sesco electricity monopoly, which is to ruthlessly cut off those people who cannot afford to pay the escalating costs being charged. Far from free electricty! The poor communities of Sungai Asap often face electricity cuts The policy is particularly galling for those displaced families who were moved into ‘resettlement’ areas to make way for hydro-electric dams. Part of the incentive that people from both Batang Ai and Bakun dam areas were given to move was that they would get free electricity as part of their compensation. However, both communities are now being asked to pay the full price for their electricity and many are regularly cut off by Sesco, because they can’t afford it. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sesco, coincidentally, just happens to be Taib’s own superbly wealthy cousin, Hamid Sepawi. The son of the Deputy Chief Minister, Alfred Jabu, is also on the Board. Sepawi and the Jabus have been given so many jobs and concessions by the Chief Minister that there is certainly no need for them to worry about such basic bills. And, while he is stern to his poorest customers, Sepawi is clearly lenient to his wealthy relative, since the fraud that his cousin indulges in is fairly easy to detect !
What the technical manager confirmed Too grand to pay his full electricity bill? In order to confirm the almost unbelievable information we had received about such petty pilfering, we thought we should seek corroboration from the man who was reportedly in charge of installing the by-pass system. This was the head technician in charge of Taib’s estate at Demak Jaya, Jong Ka Chin. We were told that Jong had also helped out Taib’s sister next door, Raziah Mahmud, who had heard about the device and wanted one too! Raziah is also fabulously rich, but clearly does not see why she should pay the same bills as everyone else. So we decided that it was time to request if he could do a similar favour for Taib’s older son Abu Bekir. After all Abu Bekir has just settled his wife’s divorce claim of RM 400 million, so he must be looking for ways to save some money! We called the technical head, Jong Ka Chin, on his personal mobile in the guise of Abu Bekir’s secretary to ask him to come and discuss the matter with the Datuk: "I am calling from the office of Abu Bekir ..it is about the electricity bypass that he wants to instal for his house tomorrow … Yes, yes … You can do it right? Yes, yes … I know You know what it is right? At Demak Jaya …[location of Chief Minister's house] Ah … can you come to the office at Titanium Management tomorrow? What time? What time? 10:30am … you know where it is right? 10:30am yeah, Datuk wants to see me? Yes, yes, Datuk Seri wants to see you …It’s about the electricity cable bypass system … to be installed in his house … The house at Demak? Datuk Seri wants to instal the electricity bypass cable system in his house. The same one done in Pehin Sri’s house. I am at the house here, now … Which house? Demak, Demak….Tomorrow I go to the office or to Demak? Go to his office first; meet with Datuk Sri first at his office at Titanium Management. Ah …ok He wants you to advise him on the electricity cable bypass system … you know what it is right? Yes The same one that was done at the house of Pehin Sri … Yes, the same. The same as the one you had done before? Yes … so tomorrow I go to the office to see you … Ah … go to the Titanium Management office to meet Datuk Seri ..ok, thank you. God night. Yes, yes, good night. From this call it was clear that Mr Jong was actually working on site at Demark Jaya at the time we were calling and he acknowledged several times that he had fitted an electricity by-pass system for the Pehin Sri’s (Taib’s) house. When we put the story past a senior Sesco operative about the scam. His observation was "so you know about that do you?!" Sesco has recently been criticised for hiring a swathe of highly-paid foreign managers. The new Norwegian Chief Executive Officer, Torstein Dale Sjotveit, is paid RM 4 million per annum and receives 10 return air tickets home on top each year. Under him are 20 other foreign engineers, who are also paid way over the normal Sarawak salary levels. One of those for me too please! - Taib's sister Raziah Mahmud put one next door as well. YB Chong from Kuching DAP recently also complained to parliament about the huge charges being demanded from customes for the installing of obligatory new meters. Customers are being asked to pay RM 650 for the fixing of the so-called up-dated meters and people who can’t pay the extra on their bills are being cut off! However, the even more damning complaint against Sesco by the majority of the people of Sarawak is that in Malaysia’s richest state 80% of the people of the interior have yet to be connected to any form of electricity at all! On behalf of Mr Jong, Sarawak Report confirms that when we rang back to gain further details of his work on the by-pass he told us that he had since spoken to Abu Bekir’s office and ascertained that Taib’s son is not in actually in Kuching or wanting work done. He then also denied that he had installed a by-pass after all. Perhaps Taib Mahmud would like to clarify the situation and confirm or deny the very well-sourced information that we have received?
Cyber-war casualty
As an addendum to this article we wish to express our concern over the sacking yesterday of a well-regarded staff member at the Borneo Post. The firing was carried out in accordance with a directive that had come straight from the officer of the Chief Minister The reason, we have learnt, was that the staff member, who is a proof-reader, had made an understandable error that was seen to have undermined the Chief Minister’s belated attempts to get ahead in what BN are describing as the ‘Cyber-war’. The Borneo Post had devised an article designed to promote one of the Chief Minister’s dozens of new sponsored websites. Its name is almost identical to the name of this website, Sarawak Report, however it contains an extra letter! The poor proof reader read the copy and assumed that a mistake had been made and altered the naming of the website to the far better-known www.sarawakreport.org, which is of course this website’s address! As a result the carefully placed Borneo Post article ended up promoting us, instead of promoting the Chief Minister’s new ‘cyber-weapon’, which exploits our name! This clearly did not go down well! We wish to say, however, that we deplore such treatment of a loyal employee, who like most of us, relies on his salary. Why should a professional be fired for failing to be sufficiently quick-footed at such dirty tricks that the Chief Minister has been attempting to play? It is surely high time that Sarawak caught up with the rest of the world with rules to protect people with fair employment rules, so that high-handed dictators like Taib do not think they can just fire decent ordinary people like this in moments of anger and bad behaviour. Don’t forget you can’t sack everybody,


TAIB MENCURI ELEKTRIK!
Sunday, March 27th, 2011 GMT this post is also available in:
English Pada ketika kebanyakan orang sedang berjimat untuk mengatur perbelanjaan bagi menghadapi kenaikan bayaran bil elektrik, Sarawak Report mendapati Ketua Menteri sedang mengguna bekalan elektrik yang dicurinya untuk berjimat! Maklumat yang mengejutkan ini datangnya dari seorang sumber dalaman yang mengetahui segala-galanya dalam rumahtangga Taib Mahmud. Kami juga telah mendapat tahu mengenai perkara ini daripada ketua juruteknik yang dilantiknya untuk menjalankan kerja-kerja penyelenggaraan di kediamannya di Demak Jaya. Kami diberitahu bahawa Ketua Menteri telah memasang kabel bawah tanah secara rahsia, yang melewati meter elektrik di luar rumahnya. Kabel bawah tanah itu dihubungkan terus ke wayar-wayar dalam rumahnya. Ini bermaksud, sekurang-kurangnya separuh dari arus elektrik masih melalui meter bagi membolehkan beliau menjimatkan bayaran elektriknya!

Ketamakan yang keterlaluan?
Taib telah menunjukkan bahawa beliau tidak biasa membelanjakan wangnya. Semua urusan keluarganya dibiayai oleh orang lain. Memandangkan keluarga Taib sudah terbiasa mengambil, bukannya memberi, mereka harus mempastikan bahawa bil-bil mereka adalah serupa dengan kadar yang dikenakan kepada kita Walau bagaimanapun, kita harus ingat bahawa Taib sememangnya membayar bil elektrik yang lebih. Beberapa tahun lalu kita telah diberitahu mengenai Dewan Undangan Negeri Sarawak telah sebulat suara bersetuju membawa elaun tahunan yang amat lumayan perlu diadakan untuk Ketua Menteri bagi membantunya membayar bil-bil elektriknya, yang kita faham bahawa beliau banyak mengadakan hiburan dan melayan tetamunya di kediaman mewahnya itu. Secara kontranya, Sarawak Report berasa simpati dengan kebanyakan rakyat Sarawak yang menjadi mangsa dasar keras syarikat Sesco milik kerajaan, yang sering memotong bekalan pelanggannya yang tidak mampu membayar kos elektrik yang kian meningkat. Pada dasar berkenaan, khasnya yang berhubung dengan keluarga yang telah ditempatkan semula untuk memberi laluan kepada pembinaan empangan-empangan hidro-elektrik. Salah satu dari insentif yang dijanjikan agar masyarakat-masyarakat Batang Ai (Lubok Antu) dan Bakun (Belaga) berpindah ke penempatan yang baru, adalah mereka akan mendapat bekalan elektrik secara percuma. Namun, kedua-dua komuniti itu telah dikehendaki membayar bil eletrik mereka sepenuhnya, dan ramai di kalangan orang-orang itu telah dipotong bekalan elektrik mereka kerana mereka tidak mampu menjelaskan bil kepada Sesco. Pengerusi Lembaga Pengarah Sesco Bhd adalah sepupu mewah Taib, iaitu Hamid Sepawi. Turut menggotai Lembaga Pengarah Sesco juga adalah anak lelaki Timbalan Ketua Menteri Alfred Jabu. Kedua-dua Hamid dan Jabu sama-sama menikmati banyak pekerjaan dan konsesi dari Ketua Menteri justeru itu mereka tidak perlu bimbang akan bil-bil mereka itu. Ketika dia bertegas terhadap pelanggan-pelangggannya yang kebanyakannya miskin, Sepawi dikatakan boleh berlembut terhadap bosnya yang mewah itu!

Apa yang disahkan oleh pengurus juruteknik
Bagi mengesahkan maklumat yang sukar dipercayai itu, kami mengambil keputusan untuk bertanya kepada orang yang telah memasang sistem untuk melewati meter itu untuk Ketua Menteri. Orang tersebut merupakan ketua juruteknik yang menguruskan kerja-kerja teknikal di kediaman Taib di Demak Jaya, Jong Ka Ching. Kami juga mendapat tahu bahawa adik Taib yang tinggal bersebelahan dengan Taib, iaitu Raziah Mahmud, yang mendengar mengenai sistem tersebut dan menunjukkan minatnya juga! Raziah juga kaya-raya, tetapi kenapa dia enggan membayar bil-bil elektrik seperti kebanyakan pengguna biasa yang lain. Maka kami telah menghubungi Jong Ka Ching sama ada dia boleh memasang sistem yang serupa untuk anak lelaki Taib, Abu Bekir. Kami pasti Abu Bekir amat memerlukan sistem yang serupa memandangkan dia baharu saja bercerai dengan isterinya dengan tuntutan cerai berjumlah RM400 juta, maka Bekir sudah tentunya ingin menjimatkan wangnya! Kami menghubungi ketua juruteknik, Jong Ka Ching, pada telefon bimbitnya di mana kami telah menyamar sebagai setiausaha Abu Bekir dan menyuruhnya datang dan membincangkan perkara berkenaan dengan Datuk itu. Berdasarkan perbualan melalui telefon itu maka sahlah Encik Jong Ka Ching itu yang melakukan kerja-kerja tersebut untuk kediaman Taib di Demak Jaya. Dalam perbualan itu, Jong telah berkali-kali mengakui dialah yang telah memasang sistem itu untuk rumah Pehin Sri. Apabila kami menceritakan keadaan itu kepada pengurus senior dalam Sesco, reaksinya adalah “jadi, kamu tahu mengenai perkara itu, kan?!” Tidak lama dahulu Sesco pernah dikritik mengenai urusan mereka mengambil penguru-pengurus luar negeri yang dibayar gaji yang tinggi. Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif yang baru mereka, Torstein Dale Sjotveit, dibayar RM4 juta setahun dan dibiayai 10 tiket penerbangan balik ke Norway setiap tahun. Terdapat 20 orang jurutera dari luar negera yang berkhidmat di bawah Sjotveit, kesemuanya dibayar gaji melebihi kadar gaji normal di Sarawak. Baru-baru ini YB Chong wakil DAP Kuching telah mengadu kepada parlimen mengenai bayaran pemasangan meter yang diwajibkan oleh Sesco terhadap pelanggan-pelanggannya. Para pelanggan mereka dikehendaki membayar RM650 untuk pemasangan meter yang dikatakan yang terkini, dan sesiapa di kalangan pelanggan mereka yang tidak mampu menjelaskannya, maka mereka terpaksalah bergelap! Namun, aduan terhadap Sesco yang paling mengejutkan adalah majoriti penduduk Sarawak, sebuah negeri yang terkaya di Malaysia, 80% rakyatnya yang tinggal di kawasan-kawasan luar bandar dan pedalaman tiada bekalan elektrik sama sekali! Bagi pihak Encik Jong, Sarawak Report ingin mengesahkan bahawa apabila kami memanggilnya semula untuk bertanyakan progress kerjanya, dia menjawab dengan mengatakan dia belum bercakap dengan Abu Bekir, dan dia juga menyatakan bahawa Abu Bekir tidak berada di Kuching atau tidak memerlukan sebarang perkhidmatan pemasangan sistem yang dibincangkan itu. Dia, kemudiannya, menafikan bahawa dia pernah memasang sistem tersebut. Mungkin Taib Mahmud ingin menjelaskan keadaan dan mengesahkan atau menafikan maklumat yang tersangat sahih pernah kami terima itu?

Mangsa perang-cyber
Sebagai tambahan kepada artikel ini kami ingin melahirkan kebimbangan dan simpati kami terhadap kes perlucutan jawatan seorang kakitangan penting kepada akhbar the Borneo Post. Perlucutan jawatan itu dilaksanakan berdasarkan arahan yang datangnya terus dari pejabat Ketua Menteri. Alasan perlucutan jawatannya itu, sebagaimana yang kami tahu, adalah kerana proof-reader itu telah melakukan kesilapan yang telah dianggap mempersendakan cubaan Ketua Menteri menangkis serangan-serangan media internet menerusi ‘Perang-cyber’. The Borneo Post telah mengarang sebuah artikel untuk mempromosikan salah sebuah dari berbelas-belas buah laman web yang dibiayai oleh Ketua Menteri itu. Nama laman web tersebut yang hampir serupa dengan nama laman web kami ini, Sarawak Report, sebenarnya mempunyai huruf yang ekstra! Si proof-reader yang malang itu telah berkali-kali membaca draf artikel itu dan menganggap dia telah terserempak dengan kesilapan ejaan, yang kemudiannya memutuskan untuk membetulkan supaya menjadi www.sarawakreport.org, yang sememangnya alamat laman web ini! Akhirnya, artikel the Borneo Post yang telah diletakkan secara strategik itu telah mempromosikan kami, dan bukannya mempromosikan ‘senjata-cyber’ tajaan Ketua Menteri, dengan mengeksploitasi nama kami! Kami amat bersimpati dengan nasib malang yang menimpa proof-reader itu, yang amat setia kepada majikannya, yang, seperti kita juga, bergantung hidup pada gajinya. Kenapakah seorang yang professional sepertinya harus diperlakukan sedemikian kerana kesilapan kecil ketika melayan kehendak dan nafsu Ketua Menteri? Kini sudah tiba masanya bagi negeri Sarawak telah mendahului negara-negara yang lain di dunia mencipta atau menggubal undang-undang untuk melindungi rakyatnya daripada dilucutkan jawatan sesuka hati oleh seorang dictator seperti Taib Mahmud. Jangan lupa, anda tak dapat melucutkan jawatan seseorang sesuka hatimu, Taib Mahmud … tetapi mereka boleh melucutkan jawatan anda dalam masa 3 minggu lagi!

PS: Beginilah keadaan negara Sarawak yang kaya akan bertambah kaya sudah pun kaya tidak perlu susah pulak nak bayar untuk mendapat kemudahaan asas sedangkan rakyat miskin terus hidup dalam keadaan yang sungguh daif. Kalau rakyat biasa yang lambat atau tidak mampu selesaikan hutang bil elektrik sudah tentu mereka akan segera memotong bekalan elektrik tetapi bagi pemimpin BN mereka (Sesco) langsung tidak berani bertindak. Mengapa pihak Sesco hanya berani bertindak terhadap rakyat biasa tetapi apabila pemimpin BN yang melakukan kesalahan yang sama mereka tidak berani bertindak dengan segera. Dimana slogan "Rakyat didahulukan, percapaian diutamakan"? Kalau rakyat Sarawak tidak mahu perubahaan dalam pilihanraya umum nanti sudah pasti kita akan terus hidup dalam kesusahan dan penderitaan akibat barang keperluan harian kita akan naik. Bah inilah peluang untuk rakyat gunakan kuasa mereka untuk perubahaan dimulakan dengan Sarawak selepas ya baru Malaysia. Insy'Allah apabila kita bagi sokongan pada PAS dan PAKATAN Rakyat sudah pasti ada perubahaan yang lebih dari kerajaan BN sekarang.