Friday 29 Mar 2024
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(April 24): Former Sarawak minister Tan Sri Leonard Linggi Jugah has denied owning investments in Peru as alleged in an investigative report by the Washington DC-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

Jugah, also denied links with Dennis Melka, the chief executive officer of London Stock Exchange (LSE)-listed company United Cacao, despite both of them being directors of Asian Plantations Limited (APL).

"Melka was a director and shareholder of APL. Where he goes after APL and further business activities has nothing to do with me.

"My investments in APL were proper and lawful," he said in a letter to The Malaysian Insider today.

In its report entitled "Deforestation by Definition", EIA linked Linggi to Melka and said both were directors of APL, which was listed on the LSE's Alternative Investments Market (AIM) and which was sold to Felda Global Ventures in 2014.

The report had also named Jugah as a key figure in a complex structure of corporate ownerships that stripped large parts of Sarawak of its natural forests and turned it into oil palm plantations to fund Melka's moves to accumulate forested land in Peru and clear them for plantations.

Jugah said parcels of land development for oil palm plantations had been purchased from the market with funds borrowed from local banks.

He said he was among many businessmen, who had submitted application for logging licence in the 1970s, when the state government opened up the forest for logging operations to both Bumiputeras and non- Bumiputeras.

He stated that at the time of his application, he was no longer holding the post of state minister.

"The state government approved many logging licences, including mine.

"Being a reasonably qualified person and an Iban, surely I have the right to be involved in business, including the logging industry," he said.

Jugah, who is now in his 70s, was former secretary-general of Sarawak's ruling party Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu. – The Malaysian Insider

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