News: Scrapped smelter plant: ‘A blow for Taib’

KUCHING: Swiss-based NGO, Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), today said the decision by global mining giant Rio Tinto PLC to scrap its plan to build a US$2 billion (RM6.1 billion) aluminium smelting plant in Sarawak was a “major victory” for the international campaign to preserve the natural environment.

The plant was to be sited at Similajau near Bintulu.

Rio Tinto decided to scrap the controversial smelter plans as negotiations with Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s family-controlled Cahaya Mata Sarawak and the Taib-controlled Sarawak Energy Bhd failed to bear results.

In a statement e-mailed to FMT, BMF said: “Rio Tinto’s announcement is a major blow for the Sarawak state government under Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud who consistently used the aluminium smelter to promote the recently completed Bakun Dam, Asia’s largest dam outside China.

“As a result, the Bakun Dam will cause a massive power glut in Sarawak whose costs will have to be borne by Sarawak consumers, taxpayers and Malaysia’s pension fund EPF which funded the mega-project with massive loans.

“Plans to export Bakun’s excess power to West Malaysia had to be scrapped for economic reasons,” BMF said.

It described Rio Tinto’s decision to abandon its Sarawak smelter plans as major victory for the international campaign to preserve the natural environment and the livelihoods of Sarawak’s indigenous peoples.

“Rio Tinto’s decision proves that the Taib government’s irresponsible economic policies have completely failed. There is no need to build another 12 dams in the state as envisaged by the Taib government.

Halt other dam projects

“All these corruption-driven dam plans that would only benefit the Taib family’s construction companies must come to a halt now.

“This is the kind of development that you have to expect from a kleptocratic potentate who believes in witchcraft instead of sound economic analysis and blatantly abuses his public office in order to rob his people,” it said.

The BMF urged the Sarawak government to immediately halt the ongoing construction works for the Murum dam and to shelve all further dam plans in the state.

“We are also calling on the Malaysian federal government to explain how the Bakun Dam should ever become profitable and how the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) loans to Bakun will be secured,” the BMF said.

The aluminium smelter was supposed to have an annual capacity of 1.5 million tonnes to meet surging demand from China and other developing economies.

But the project, which was first announced in 2007, had not gone beyond the planning stage due to delays in constructing the Bakun Dam that would provide cheap power to energy-guzzling smelter.

Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/03/28/scrapped-smelter-plant-a-blow-for-taib/