SarawakReport : Ottawa's 'Local Company' And The Taib Family Back In The Spotlight In Canada

11 April 2017 Jamilah and auntie Raziah Geneid – draped in gems as always Readers can rest assured that the enormous pearls clustered by the dozen around Jamilah’s neck are entirely genuine. The Taib family women are notorious for their obsession with gaudy baubles, as are other females linked to the Malaysian grand kleptocracy, including the wife of the present prime minister. This weekend the Ottawa Citizen newspaper took up the investigation into the Taib family’s massive real estate  development company in Canada, publishing a major analysis of the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) report on Sakto and its affiliates around the globe. Sakto, which is headed by Jamilah’s husband Hisham (Sean) Murray, rounded back on its findings, stating to the Ottawa Citizen: “The assertions made by this foreign activist group are false, malicious and sensationalized. This organization’s rehashed and repackaged allegations have been found to be lacking in merit and never substantiated by any government or authoritative body.” In which case one has to ask why Mr Murray has always balked at taking legal action, despite having threatened it against both Sarawak Report and BMF a number of times? Sakto has invested Sarawak’s money in sweeping glass towers and appartments in Ottawa – leaving people living like this back home All BMF’s allegations are based on public records, so what, one wonders, can be called “false”?  BMF points to the likelihood that if the majority of Sakto’s records were not secret, thanks to Canada’s notorious lack of transparency for an advanced nation, then there would be even more evidence of Taib funding of his young daughter’s business. So. if Mr Murray dislikes the suggestion and says it is untrue, why does he not simply open up his company’s records to the level that you would expect for example in the UK or Australia and reveal who the shareholders are of Sakto and publish the company’s annual reports? Murray and his family have sought to present the company as being owned by them, however the evidence points to the presumption that it is 100% owned by the Taibs, so why not just publish the facts? Instead, he is content to call people who have no financial or any other interest in making false accusations about Sakto “malicious liars”. Sean has donated heavily to political parties in Canada with his Sarawak money (note the fur and diamonds) He also claims that the allegations are “re-packaged” and have already “been found to be lacking in merit”. Really? Where and by whom were the allegations found to be lacking in merit? Certainly not in a court of law, where it seems Sean is too chicken to test the matter. In their recent statements Sakto have claimed that they are a “local company” and denied their funding came from Taib’s corrupt kickbacks from Sarawak, contrary to mounds of information provided by BMF (and indeed Sarawak Report). However, the Ottawa Citizen points out that these statements by Sakto contradict their own earlier boasts way back when they started out in the 80’s and 90’s when they told the Ottawa Citizen that Sakto was a “firm that specializes in offshore investment in Canada.” Sakto towerblock in Ottawa Jamilah also boasted publicly at that time that Sakto had a number of big investors from the Pacific Rim region,. However, later Sakto acknowledged that there were only three shareholders besides herself, all of them Taib family members, including her uncle Onn, who was one of the original registered directors. Who are the others and where did all Sakto’s ‘shareholder loans’ come from? So, if Jamilah is so willing to flaunt her wealth and to claim everything is above board, why not flaunt those accounts and stop being so coy? See the full article from the Ottawa Citizen below: Anything familiar? In their statements the Taib/Murrays boast about their famed “local philanthropy”.  It makes them part of a long line of Malaysian kleptocrats who have hidden behind philanthropy in rich countries, whilst ignoring the poor back home from whence they stole their money.  Maybe the Taibs should stop trying to buy favours and plaudits in Canada with money taken from the lands of the poor natives of Sarawak and maybe Canadians should stop accepting it? Ottawa real estate company’s ties to Malaysia questioned MATTHEW PEARSON, OTTAWA CITIZEN More from Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen Published on: April 9, 2017 | Last Updated: April 9, 2017 7:15 PM EDT A Swiss NGO says financing for an Ottawa company’s high-profile real-estate projects comes, at least in part, from corruption in the Borneo rainforest — an allegation the company fiercely denies. In an 86-page report released at a press conference on Parliament Hill last week, the Bruno Manser Fund says Sakto Corp., owner of Little Italy’s Preston Square development, grew quickly after it was founded in 1983 by Jamilah Taib Murray, despite continuous operational losses and a resulting capital deficiency that had grown to nearly $10 million by 1993. The secret to the company’s success, the report alleges, “was a continuous capital influx” from its shareholders, the Taib family, which included Taib Murray and her uncle, Onn Mahmud. Taib Murray, who came to Ottawa as a teenager to attend school, is the daughter of Abdul Taib Mahmud, a long-serving and powerful politician in Sarawak, Malaysia’s largest state. Taib Mahmud, now 80, has long been dogged by controversy because, rainforest advocates say, Sarawak under his watch lost more than 90 per cent of its primeval tropical rainforest, one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, to logging and palm oil plantations. Meanwhile, in Canada, his daughter started her real estate business with an undisclosed amount of money she received from her father — money he says he received as a gratuity when he resigned from Malaysia’s federal government in 1981, according to the report. “With the help of family and friends, we founded Sakto Corporation when I was in my early 20s. Teamwork, smart business choices and savvy negotiation skills enabled us to grow Sakto Corportation into the successful company it is today,” Taib Murray writes on her personal website. Sakto Corp.’s current assets are estimated at $200 million, not counting its subsidiaries and related businesses in the U.K., the United States, Australia and Malaysia. It recently won Ottawa city council’s endorsement to add a 25-storey building to Preston Square. The company responded to a list of questions the Citizen sent by email with a statement. “Sakto Corporation is a reputable, local Canadian company whose officers, directors and shareholders are Canadian,” the statement said. “The company is led by a local family known for being community supporters and philanthropists.” “The assertions made by this foreign activist group are false, malicious and sensationalized. This organization’s rehashed and repackaged allegations have been found to be lacking in merit and never substantiated by any government or authoritative body.” Attempts to reach Abdul Taib Mahmud, who currently serves in the ceremonial role of governor of Sarawak, and Onn Mahmud, through his Singapore-based lawyer, were unsuccessful. A January 1989 Citizen story characterized Sakto as a “firm that specializes in offshore investment in Canada.” Up to that point, Sakto had only invested in residential properties, building up a portfolio of 450 apartments, condominiums and garden homes since the company was founded in 1983. But the 1989 Citizen article said Sakto’s most ambitious project to date was the $45-million Commerce Plaza (known today at Preston Square), which took four years to put together. “Taib Murray calls the three-tower retail-office complex a test of her abilities in the eyes of absentee shareholders,” the Citizen article said. The Taibs have bought and built private residences in Ontario with a current tax worth that’s in excess of $15.2 million, including a mansion in Rockcliffe Park, says the report, citing Municipal Property Assessment Corp. valuations from 2012. By 1993, the report says members of the Taib family had invested at least $29.8 million in the Sakto Corp. ($28.8 million in loans, $1.01 million in share capital). The report contends the source of these funds is unknown. Three years later, the report alleges, the Taib family secured two mortgages of $20 million each on Sakto properties in Ottawa. One of the mortgages was registered for “Jamilah Taib” and the other for “Jamilah Taib, in trust.” It’s unclear why this was done, the report says. There’s a further twist to the 1996 mortgage registered for “Jamilah Taib, in trust”: One of the lenders was an offshore company in Hong Kong controlled by Onn Mahmud, Taib Murray’s uncle. Its only known business activity, the report says, was to provide loans to the Sakto Corp. And it shared its offices, management and a shareholder with a twin company called Regent Star Ltd. Regent Star’s only known business activity was to collect payments from Japanese companies that imported tropical hardwood from Sarawak when Taib Mahmud, says the report, “exerted unfettered control over the Sarawak timber business” as chief minister, minister of resource planning, and chairman of the Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corp. In 2008, Japan’s national tax tribunal found that nine Japanese shipping companies had paid at least $1.1 billion yen (about $13 million Cdn) to Regent Star based on a 1983 brokerage agreement for the shipping of Sarawak timber, the report says. The NGO’s allegation is that the payments were received “by the Taib family from the Japanese timber importers.” “It appears likely that part of the $20-million loan provided to the Sakto Group in 1996 by Jamilah Taib in trust was money paid by Japanese timber importers to the Taib family through Regent Star,” the report says. The NGO’s analysis of Sakto’s finances is divided into two periods in the report: 1983 to 1993 and 1994 to the present. For the first decade, much was gleaned from audited financial statements for Sakto Development Corp. held on microfiche by a library in London, Ont. Much less is known about the company’s finances after 1994 because financial statements of non-public companies are usually private. The authors of the report say they also relied on land registry records and a number of public statements by company officials or associated businesses. The Bruno Manser Fund is a charitable association in Basil, Switzerland, that works to protect the threatened tropical rainforests and rights of indigenous forest peoples in Sarawak. It was founded by Swiss rainforest advocate Bruno Manser, who disappeared in Malaysia in 2000. Executive director Lukas Straumann, one of the report’s three authors, travelled to Ottawa for its launch. He was joined by representatives from Mining Watch Canada, Canadians for Tax Fairness and the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability. The report’s release was used by the groups to demand the federal government strengthen its anti-money laundering legislation and fulfill a campaign promise to create a new, independent ombudsperson to investigate complaints related to natural resource extraction. In a written statement, International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the federal government “expects all Canadian firms to operate lawfully and according to Canadian values. “We recognize there are always improvements to be made. We have met with the Corporate Social Responsibility Counselor to evaluate how to strengthen his role. We continue to meet with Canadian mining companies to discuss how to improve our practices and strengthen the Canadian brand abroad,” the statement said. Straumann said his Safe Haven Canada report was carefully drafted based on public records he and fellow researchers were able to get their hands on. “We knew we had to do our homework,” he said. Sakto, he said, has offered no explanation for where its money has come from and has successfully shielded its Canadian assets from scrutiny for more than 30 years because federal privacy laws protect the shareholders and beneficial owners of private corporations. Straumann called the logging activities in the Borneo rainforest a “man-made tragedy” and added the indigenous people of Sarawak, despite being promised wealth and development, remain among the state’s marginalized poor. “They are not seeing the benefits,” he said. The Bruno Manser Fund says it first alerted the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) of its concerns about the Taib family in 2010. The NGO says the Taibs meet the definition of politically exposed foreign persons (PEFPs) due to Abdul Taib Mahmud’s role as head of government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The definition also applies to children, spouses and siblings. Financial transactions with PEFPs are, by definition, high risk with regard to potential money laundering and require enhanced due diligence from financial institutions, the NGO says. The NGO says neither the federal government nor the RCMP has ever officially investigated Sakto or taken any steps to freeze the company’s assets. In fact, the Attorney General of Ontario is among the provincial government agencies that rent office space from the company at Preston Square. In a written statement to the Citizen, FINTRAC says it is prohibited under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act from “commenting on any information that it may have received or that it may have disclosed to its police, law enforcement or national security partners.” The statement further adds FINTRAC is not an investigative agency and has no authority to pursue criminal charges. FINTRAC shares its financial intelligence “when it has reasonable grounds to suspect that the information would be relevant to investigating or prosecuting a money laundering offence or a terrorist activity financing offence.” A spokesperson for the RCMP would not comment on whether it has ever investigated Sakto. “I can say that generally, only in the event that an investigation results in the laying of criminal charges would the RCMP confirm its investigation, the nature of any charges laid and the identity of the individual(s) involved,” said Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer. Taib Mahmud has been accused of corruption and abuse of public office. Between 1998 and 2007, the NGO’s report says, Taib family companies were granted land leases for nearly 200,000 hectares of state land worth several hundred million dollars by the Sarawak state government when Taib Mahmud was the minister in charge. Although Malaysia’s anti-corruption commission opened an investigation into Taib Mahmud in 2011, a Bloomberg report from May 2014 cites a written reply the government agency sent in March 2014 to Malaysian members of parliament saying Taib, Sarawak’s former chief minister, wasn’t involved in decisions to award any project or land to his family members, according to the commission’s findings to that point.

Sarawak Report : Canada Is A Magnet For Dirty Money And A Safe Haven For Abdul Taib Mahmud Says BMF

Canada Is A Magnet For Dirty Money And A Safe Haven For Abdul Taib Mahmud Says BMF 31 March 2017 Weak regulation and poor transparency have turned Canada into a money-launderer’s paradise, asserts Switzerland’s Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), which today launched a detailed report on Sarawak’s Taib family’s properties in Ottawa. Numerous regulatory ‘Red Flags’ have been ignored over the years by banks and overseers, according to their research, which has allowed this politically connected family to acquire hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets in Canada and to raise several enormous commercial loans. BMF also provides compelling evidence that the family representatives who manage the Sarawak Governor’s wealth in Canada, namely his daughter Jamilah and her husband Sean Murray, are using their extensive political and financial influence to fend off investigations by the authorities. BMF’s report Their report titled “Safe Haven Canada” consists of a detailed overview of known properties owned by the Taib-connected Sakto Group of companies in Canada, which they say are conservatively valued at a minimum of $200 million. It charts the history of Sakto Development Corporation and its related companies, which were set up by Taib Mahmud’s brother Onn Mahmud in 1983, shortly after Taib because Chief Minister, together with Taib’s daughter Jamilah and son Abu Bekir (mere college students at the time). Taib has later admitted that the original investment in Sakto had come from him, describing it as a “small gratuity” received on his retirement as a minister in the Federal Government (a payment that has not been fully explained nor the amount disclosed). In fact, within a year $4.5 million had been invested by its shareholders in the purchase of 400 properties, according to research by Sarawak Report and financial records for the next ten years obtained by BMF showed that tens of millions were invested during those early years, establishing the likely pattern over following decades. On one occasion a $20 million loan was extended through the controversial Ridgefold Limited in Hong Kong, which was linked to the Japanese shipping kickback scandal extensively covered by Sarawak Report, which unearthed documents that rebut Taib’s later attempts to deny money was paid to his companies by Japanese timber exporters. BMF revealed that the loan was extended by a collection of family members, including Taib’s now deceased wife Jamilah as well as two Taib companies, Richfold in Hongkong (a sister company of the timber kickback company Regent Star) and Sogo Holding, based in Jersey. Sakto shareholders are the Taib family  Frontmen – Sean (Hisham) Murray and wife Jamilah Taib The report points out that journalists have now established what the Sakto Group’s directors (namely Jamilah and her husband Sean Murray) have sought to disguise for many years, which is that Sakto’s original and present shareholders are all members of the Taib family, from the time when Jamilah was a mere student. According to a statement sent by Sean Murray to a Canadian newspaper last year the shareholders are Jamilah and three other Taib family members including Onn Mahmud, Taib’s younger brother, who handled all his family business dealings while his children were still too young to front such operations. This confirms that Sakto and its related entities were always Taib family companies, rather than a Murray family companies as managers attempted to suggest before being exposed by Sarawak Report. Chris Murray, Sean’s cousin in charge of the London branch, Ridgeford Properties, attempted to paint the group as Murray family enterprise When Sarawak Report interviewed Chris Murray he repeated that lie (although he subsequently removed the above Wikipedia entry) Straight lies from the Murrays who claimed they started and owned Sakti (to cover for the Taibs) Lawyers acting jointly for Taib and for Sean Murray even attempted to intimidate Sarawak Report and BMF saying they should retract their remarks, since no money had ever gone from Taib into Sakto: False claim made by Taib’s lawyers Mishcon de Reya Sarawak Report did not withdraw the claim and Mishcon de Reya failed to carry out its threat to “sue without further notice”. Later, Taib’s acknowledgement he had in fact put up ‘small gratuity’ to start up Sakto’s multi-million dollar ventures proved that the above legal threats had been based on lies. BMF documents how Jamilah likewise herself has attempted to deceive people over the origins of the company’s investments, by implying to journalists during the 1980s that there had been around 10 -12 shareholders from different parts of the Pacific region, not just family members as has now been admitted. It means that the Taibs and Murrays have persistently lied over the years in order to attempt to disguise the fact that the money coming into this major Canadian property company originated with the Taib family in Sarawak – a politically exposed group of people who had no legitimate means of acquiring such sums. Shame on Canada World class kleptocrat – Taib cut down the Borneo Jungle and kept most of the cash Despite this extensive research and the clear proof now available, however, BMF says it has become outraged over the continued failure by the Canadian authorities to act in setting up criminal investigations into money laundering concerns by Sakto. Neither have the major Canadian lending institutions, such as Manulife (which opened an office in Sarawak during the period Taib was Chief Minister) and Royal Bank of Canada  operated mandatory Red Flag proceedures in the course of lending to these politically connected companies associated with a known corrupt third world leader. In the case of one lending institution, BMF was advised to report the matter to the police and not to bother the lender. There is concern that the Taib/Murrays, who are major political donors, have achieved undue political influence in Ottawa, Canada where they now rank as one of the country’s largest property developers thanks to the huge injections of illegal cash from Sarawak’s Taib Mahmud. An example of undue political influence was the cancellation last month of a draft OECD report in Canada relating to the Sakto Group, which had been prompted by BMF’s concerns. In October 2016 the Canadian National Contact Point on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises issued a draft report on the concerns raised by BMF about Sakto’s lack of transparency over its finances and shareholders. Mysterious change of tune from Canada’s representatives to the OECD This extensive and detailed  11 page document upheld each and every one of BMF’s concerns and denied counter-arguments put forward by Sakto lawyers during the negotiating process. Its recommendation was that the OECD should proceed to a full review of the Sakto Group and the complaints relating to its shortcomings, referring in the process to OECD guidelines supported by the Government of Canada. This would have resulted in a major reputational set-back for this Taib/Murray enterprise and BMF eventually became aware of a considerable delay in proceeding to the review.  When the NGO enquired about the delay the OECD officials explained in November of 2011: “The NCP has received extensive commentary from Sakto’s legal counsel, which we are now in the process of reviewing. We thank you for your understanding. Please be assured that the NCP is doing its best to move this process forward as quickly as possible.” Six months later, however, instead of proceeding to the review, the Canadian OECD Contact Point completely reversed its original recommendations, without providing a single explanation why! A new Draft Assessment was created, which consisted of a mere one and a half pages, simply dismissing the complaint, without any of the detailed breakdown provided by the original document that had supported the BMF concerns. In a brief letter, the Chairman of the Canadian National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD explained merely: ‘The NCP regrets that the process has taken longer than usual. The NCP has duly considered the submissions from the parties and conducted its due diligence in the most expeditious manner as was possible…..” Lukas Straumann, Director of BMF, has expressed his outrage at the clear interference by Sakto and the lack of transparency over the Canadian officials’ own volte-farce, for which they have offered no credible explanation whatsoever” “The Canadian NCP of the OECD produced an extensive initial draft assessment that was highly detailed and closely argued, according to the legal position and guidelines on OECD policy. This initial assessment accepted BMF’s position on each and every point and rejected Sakto’s own submissions. It made clear that the Taib family’s Sakto group is indeed in breach of the OECD’s disclosure standards for multinational enterprises. That process had taken over a year. Then, suddenly, a last minute heavy intervention by Sakto’s lawyers was allowed to delay the entire process and the NCP went completely silent about what new representations were being made or what other interferences were taking place.  The outcome has been a total reversal of their original closely explained findings, which has been replaced by a one page rejection of our submissions, without analysis or explanation. Where is the supposed transparency required by the OECD’s own guidelines, which the Government of Canada is supposed to adhere to? This is a hugely shameful episode for the Government of Canda and exposes its institutions as being unduly subject to pressure from secretive corporations like Sakto, which is now known to be entirely run and owned by a notorious political family in Malaysia, which is a country presently under the international corruption and money-laundering spotlight owing to the massive 1MDB scandal” BMF has launched an open demonstration in Ottawa today, pointing out that it is Canada’s unusual lack of transparency over corporate public information that has made it a magnet for kleptocrats like Taib Mahmud, along with other persons of dubious wealth. Shareholders of companies are allowed to remain secret in Canada. Neither do corporate annual accounts have to be made publicly available. This means there is far less information available to explain the ownership and value of companies in Canada than, for example, in Australia, the UK and most states in America. The message to Canada is clean up your act, before your image is further tarnished. You can read the report by accessing the Bruno Manser Fund online site.

Way to go Canada.

CANADA O CANADA....

Loke Sardon shared Sendhil Naathan's photo.

Believe it or not...! With young Treudeau...! Amazing indeed...!

Sendhil Naathan

21 November 2015 · 

 

O Canada.....What a cabinet:

Minister of Health is a doctor.
Minister of Transport is an astronaut.
Minister of National Defense is a Sikh Veteran.
Minister of Youth is under the age of 45.
Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is a former farmer.
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was a Scout.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development was a financial analyst.
Minister of Finance is a successful businessman.
Minister of Justice was a crown prosecutor and is a First Nations leader.
Minister of Sport, and Persons with Disabilities is a visually impaired Paralympian.
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Canadian Coastguard is Inuit.
Minister of Science is a medical geographer with a PhD.
Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees was an Immigration critic.
 
There are scientists in the cabinet, and it is made up of 50% women.

P.S. My Daughter have lived in Canada for many years....maybe she knows something about Canada that I did not know even then!

A Malaysian is a Malaysian, is a Malaysian...have Faith!

steadyaku47 comment : Our PM should give the same speech for Malaysians...all Malaysians!

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talking about Hijabi Muslim mother he met during his campaign in St Catharines, Ontario.

Watch how the western society treats their politicians......

steadyaku47 comment : Saw this on FB and sharing it . tqs to Nik.

Nik Hasyudeen shared Global News's video.

Watch how the western society treats their politicians. They may show some respect but they do not treat them like gods.

Beginilah cara masyarakat barat melayani ahli politik mereka. Mereka mungkin menunjukkan rasa hormat tetapi tidak mendewakan orang-orang politik.

1:41/2:17

3,917,650 Views

Global News

Canada's next Prime Minister spent the morning after the election in a Montreal subway station to say thank you to transit riders. Surprised commuters shook his hand and posed for photos. For a detailed look at what went down on election night, click here: http://glbn.ca/TDj9U