‘Jeffrey’s statements on NCA contradict from CM’s’
KOTA KINABALU: Sri Tanjong assemblyman Justin Wong urged Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan to explain the status of the Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) in Sabah, saying that Jeffrey has been issuing contradicting statements from that of the Chief Minister.
Wong said that according to recent news reports, Jeffrey was reported to have said that Sabah is going ahead with the NCA for carbon credit sales despite objections.
This was contradicting Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor’s statement in December last year who said that the Sabah government had yet to start the NCA deal due to many technical issues that needed to be resolved.
“Hajiji and Jeffrey are saying different things on the NCA. They have been inconsistent and incoherent about this deal. Jeffrey has the responsibility to explain if the NCA has indeed started or not.
“It seems that they have different views internally in the Sabah Cabinet. Any statement that comes out from any Cabinet member must be consistent and uniform, but what we can see now is discrepancies between Sabah number one and number two,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
Wong also urged Jeffrey to explain why the latter insisted on proceeding with the deal with the controversial Singaporebased company Hoch Standard, especially when Jeffrey had admitted in the Sabah State Legislative Assembly sitting that he was wrong about the Hoch Standard’s US$10 million paidup capital.
“Hoch Standard’s paid-up capital was US$1,000. How can we not question this company when it is so young and has such small capital? Jeffrey has to at least make us confident about this company since it is going to handle a pilot project involving 600,000 hectares of Sabah’s land.
“You are essentially giving the wrong signal to the public that even a company with a mere 1,000 USD capital could undertake such a huge project,” he stressed.
Wong also questioned why Jeffrey would still proceed with implementing the NCA deal after the Sabah Attorney-General (AG) Datuk Nor Asiah Mohd Yusof said that the NCA was “legally impotent” in February 2022.
On Tuesday, Jeffrey who is the chairman of the Steering and Management Committee for the Implementation of the NCA claimed that certain nongovernment organisations (NGOs) had tried to mislead indigenous people in Sabah to reject carbon trading.
On this, Wong said he believed the NGOs were not trying to mislead people but were merely acting based on the inconsistent responses from the Sabah government.
“Just like me, I believe that NGOs were only demanding transparency and a detailed explanation about the NCA. The NCA is not a petty matter, it is very important to Sabah as it involves management of carbon credit sales of two million hectares of forest reserves for 100 years,” he said.
Hajiji and Jeffrey are saying different things on the NCA. They have been inconsistent and incoherent about this deal. Jeffrey has the responsibility to explain if the NCA has indeed started or not.
Justin Wong