Rafizi: Come clean on logging concession or face expose

Nigel Aw 3:25PM Oct 30, 2012

PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli today issued an ultimatum to Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Mohamad Hasan to come clean on the state’s logging concessions or face an expose of Umno-linked companies responsible for rapidly consuming the state’s forest reserves.

“The rakyat deserves to know who got these logging concessions, how much revenue the government is getting and the ownership status of the lands,” he told a press conference at the Parliament lobby this morning.

This, Rafizi said, follows Mohamad’s unsatisfactory response to the former’s expose that the state government had illegally allowed Umno-linked companies to log in the Padang Selatan forest reserve.

While Mohamad had said that 2,400 hectares of forest reserve had been replaced to compensate for the logging, Rafizi pointed out that the menteri besar had completed ignored addressing the illegality of the move.

“Mohamad had failed to explain the exco’s decision to nullify the permanent forest reserve status of the Padang Selatan forest reserve which is illegal under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976,” he said.

 The Jeram Padang Selatan forest reserve area is marked as an environmentally sensitive area (ESA), Class 1, which means no development is allowed.