Tiiiiim-ber! Auditor's report exposes forest loss - Anil Netto

What happens when the Auditor General comes up with a report critical of areas under your ministry’s jurisdiction? Why, you ask for it to be amended, of course!

That’s what Sarawak State Second Minister of Planning and Resource Management Awang Tengah Ali Hassan reportedly did when he asked the Auditor General to amend its Annual Report for 2008. Awang Tengah was unhappy about the bit that cited Sarawak along with Kelantan, Pahang and Johor as having poor forest management that led to river pollution, erosion, landslides and destruction of flora and fauna, according to the Malaysian Mirror.

Here’s one such excerpt from the Auditor’s Report that might help to explain the fuss: the report noted that in Nov 2007 and March 2008, the Sarawak Minister of Planning and Resource Management had fixed six million hectares as the target for permanent forest reserves. But the report added that the Ministry did not say when this announcement would come into effect.

The report continued:

Semakan Audit mendapati setakat akhir tahun 2008, Negeri Sarawak mempunyai HSK (permanent forest reserve) seluas 5.56 juta hektar yang telah diwartakan. Bagaimanapun, bagi tahun 1990 hingga 2008 sebanyak 0.96 juta hektar HSK telah dimansuhkan di mana 18,352 hektar dimansuhkan bagi tahun 2006 hingga 2008. Baki keluasan kawasan HSK adalah sejumlah 4.60 juta hektar. Kawasan HSK yang telah dimansuhkan dan belum diganti adalah seperti di Jadual 5.8….

Pada pendapat Audit, matlamat untuk mencapai sasaran enam juta hektar HSK tidak akan tercapai sekiranya usaha segera tidak diambil untuk mewartakan kawasan hutan yang telah dikenal pasti sebagai menggantikan HSK yang telah dimansuhkan. Peruntukan Undang-undang yang sedia ada hendaklah diperkemas dengan mewajibkan setiap HSK yang dimansuhkan diganti dengan segera.

You can see why this Sarawak leader seems ruffled by the Auditor General’s report. There’s a lot more stuff in the report about how logging and forest clearing have contributed to all sorts of pollution and other environmental degradation.

But you get the idea.