I’m not part of it – Tham

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KOTA KINABALU: A former Deputy Chief Minister has deemed the approval of the Sustainable Forest Management Units (FMUs) by the previous administration ‘questionable’.

This was especially true when Datuk Tham Nyip Shen came forward to categorically declare that he has very little knowledge on the approval of the FMUs, and not a party to the controversy surrounding the issue which was recently hotly debated between two former Chief Ministers, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Datuk Seri Panglima Yong Teck Lee.

A former deputy president of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), Tham was a State Cabinet Minister from 1994 to 2004. He also held various portfolios, including State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, State Industrial Development Minister and State Resource Development and Information Technology Minister.

He was later appointed the Science Advisor to the Chief Minister but resigned soon after SAPP pulled out from the Barisan Nasional (BN) in September 2008.

“The Forest Department is directly under the Chief Minister’s purview. When the FMU was conceived, most of us (ministers) were discouraged to ‘inquire’. I myself was ‘told off’ a few times. This made me even less keen on the subject. Yes, it was eventually brought to the Cabinet; armed with very little knowledge, no discussion can be meaningful. The FMU agreement was signed at a pre-organized ceremony immediately after that very Cabinet meeting that approved it. This made it pointless to revisit the subject thereafter, as the Chinese popular saying “the rice is now cooked”, or equivalent to “crying over spilled milk”.

“A number of Cabinet ministers were shocked and speechless. None of us said anything else from then on. Our only hope was that the Chief Minister of the day had made a good decision for Sabah, thereby all of us can live happily ever after,” elaborated Tham in a statement yesterday.

He noted that the recent debate by the two former Chief Ministers seemed to have highlighted the issues otherwise and implied controversy.

“Statements made had aroused more questions than answers provided. It was also implied that all those (ministers) present then had a good share of the deal! To this notion I have to categorically say – “NO! I personally did not benefit from this,” he stressed.

He explained that he was compelled to come out to clear the air as the recent public debate carried in most daily newspapers has implicated a number of Cabinet ministers, both current as well as former and his name was unfortunately included in the list.

“Many concerned friends of mine have been asking me what is going on. This statement serves to clarify a few matters,” he said.

Tham said he had supported the Cabinet paper on the FMUs as at that time he believed that the FMUs was a noble proposition and if implemented correctly, will be successful.

“However, since its inception, it has been clouded with allegation after allegation. It now seems that there are other unknown matters beyond the Cabinet paper and Cabinet decision. To this I declare that I have no knowledge and I am certainly not part of it,” he said.

He explained that firstly, Cabinet meetings are complicated as they often involved a wide range of issues. Very often, a minister was left to handle his or her ministerial work only as there would be little time to understand the details works of other ministries.