Kota Kinabalu: Sabah’s second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said he is unaware of any advance payments stemming from a recently-announced carbon trading deal from an 80,000 hectare protected forest in the interior district of Kuamut.
He said that the matter was not raised in Cabinet meetings.
“I don’t know ... but so far I know it was never raised in the Cabinet,” he said when asked about the carbon exchange deal that was reportedly paid out in advance.
The deal was a “service agreement” between Permian Malaysia Sdn Bhd, the Sabah Government and Yayasan Sabah subsidiary and Rakyat Berjaya.
It was signed on August 6, last year, involving an 80,000ha-logged-over forest in Kuamut.
Yayasan Sabah deputy director Datuk Sam Mannan, a former Sabah chief conservator of forests said that the State Government landed the deal after 10 years of deliberation and that an advanced payment to the State Government had also been made.
However, the value of the carbon trade deal was not revealed due to “business considerations”.
The new carbon trade deal is not to be mistaken with the controversial Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) which has now been declared “legally impotent.”
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