Bustari Brothers Booted Out of pan borneo project 
Mar 22 2019, 09:47 AM, updated 7y ago
In particular, the fact that the major concession to manage the entire project in Sarawak had been handed by then Public Works Minister, Fadillah Yusuf to his brother Bustari Yusuf’s company, Lebuhraya Borneo Utara Sdn Bhd (LBU) .
Bustari Yusuf goes back a long way in Sarawak, where he was at one point treasurer of the dominant state party PBB and a major timber concession winner from his close political ally Taib Mahmud.
But by 2015 this wheeler dealer fixer had morphed into one of Najib Razak’s closest confidants, a status strengthened by his deep friendship with wife Rosmah, a former work colleague.
Bustari was one of the key figures to join Najib on the super-yacht Alfa Nero off Monaco during the signing of the joint venture between 1MDB and PetroSaudi back in August 2009 (from which £US1.83 billion was misappropriated). Later, he was one of the biggest recipients of millions of ringgit of cash funnelled away from those misappropriated funds into Najib’s slush fund AmBank account in Kuala Lumpur.
In the run up to the 2013 general election Bustari Yusuf received no less than RM56 million in funds from Najib’s accounts through two separate monster payments – money that is widely understood to have been aimed at securing the election for BN back in his home state, Sarawak.
That election was dominated by stories of vote buying – the UK TV news station Ch4 News reported evidence of notes in envelopes being distributed in front of polling stations.
Najib still maintains he at least believed this cash was provided by a ‘Saudi Royal’ to help him secure the election to ‘prevent extremism’ in his portion of the Muslim world (the FBI has traced it back to 1MDB every step of the way).
Yet, Sarawak is predominantly Christian and Najib has now joined forces with the remaining radical wing of the islamic supremacist party PAS, which was largely identified as the extremist threat in question back in 2015.
Unbuttoning Najib’s structures of influence and his client placemen throughout government and the economy has proven a slow process. The judiciary still seem remarkably slow to take obvious actions to bring to trial (or even remand) this former politician charged with multiple crimes, each of which would land a lesser figure behind bars while awaiting trial.
One assumes this is no reflection on their independence from the person who appointed them behind the scenes, namely Bustari’s benefactor Najib. If it is, it would represent just part of the clear up problem facing Malaysia’s present reformers.
Read our original story exposing the scandalous connections between the Bustari brothers and the Borneo Highway contract HERE.
SOS
The PWD Minister's Brother's Pan-Borneo Highway Connection EXPOSE!
he government practice of appointing so-called ‘main contractors’ to ‘project manage’ major developments has quite rightly raised considerable criticism in Malaysia and Sarawak.
Particularly when these middlemen have been appointed without any open tendering for the job.
This is because it has become a great way for politically connected companies to skim off vast tranches of the public money awarded to government projects, before sub-contracting the jobs to actual construction companies.
The Sarawak DAP leader YB Chong has raised the issue with regard to the massive Pan Borneo Highway contract, which he says has been secretly negotiated to a previously unheard of outfit in true “Ali Baba” style:
“While the chief minister is preaching integrity and transparency and that the state cabinet ministers have signed the so-called ‘Integrity Pledge’, why is the contract worth more than RM10 billion awarded without open tender process?”, he questioned last week. He continued:
“While LBU [Lebuhraya Borneo Utara Sdn Bhd] has only been registered in 2011 and zero track record in construction and any trading activity, why was LBU appointed as the main contractor? Is the government intending to continue with the ‘Ali Baba’ modus operandi in the implementation of its projects,” [YB Chong Chieng Jen April 19th]
Chong has also questioned why it is not a Sarawak controlled company that has received the juicy contract for the state, but the apparently Malay-dominated Lebuhraya Borneo Utara?
Yet in this he may be deceived, since Sarawak Report has evidence of a hidden Sarawak connection after all
The Bustari Yusuf family’s business and political nexus
The Minister for Public Works is Fadillah Yusuf, one of the Sarawak MPs who got plum jobs in Najib’s post-2013 cabinet as a reward for delivering the seats that kept BN in power (he also keeps a local handle in Sarawak as the PBB ‘Youth Chief’).
Fadillah’s family has been extremely powerful and rich in the state ever since his brother, Bustari Yusuf, made the move to back Taib Mahmud against his uncle in the 1980’s in a political battle that set the power structure for the next three and a half decades and continues to do so.
Bustari became the Treasurer of Taib’s party PBB (he remains branch chief in Sibu) and was simultaneously awarded vast timber concessions in the state.
His family’s business empire then began a trajectory from which they have never looked back, while his brother moved conveniently into the field of politics to become one of Taib’s key ‘yes’ men in government.
Construction contracts fell into the Bustari families various companies’ laps, along with more timber and plantation concessions.
These include KACC construction, which has received a staggering number of government contracts worth hundreds of millions over the years and OBYU Holdings Sdn Bhd, which has a large web of interests in property and plantations.
The Bustaris also have an interest in Austral Plantations, which has received fat plantation concessions from the state government and federally Bustari controls one of Malaysia’s largest energy companies Petra Energy:
Interestingly, many of the Yusuf family’s state-connected business enterprises have intertwined with the family of the Deputy Chief Minister, Alfred Jabu, who has delivered key Iban votes to the minority Melanau dominated administration run by Taib.
Jabu’s offspring, Bustari’s offspring and Fadillah’s offspring have shared the spoils as company shareholders in a number of key concerns, as previously pointed out by SR.
Behind it all remains Taib, the giver of all bounty in Sarawak for decades, followed by his close ally and successor Adenan, who is also known to be exceedingly close to the Bustari family (Bustari Yusuf’s travel company has organised the fares for the chief minister and his family on their current trip to the UK this weekend – a service he has also regularly provided to other key political travellers)
Now wealthy beyond measure Bustari Yusuf has continued his career into West Malaysia, by making close allies also of the present Prime Minister and his wife Rosmah, who is known to be extremely friendly with Mr Yusof.
Indeed Rosmah and Yusuf go back a long way, say insiders, having formed a very close relationship indeed back in their youth, when they both worked for the developer Island Peninsular Sdn Bhd.
And Bustari has another key link with Prime MinisterNajib.
His company Petra Energy (the happy recipient of huge oil contracts) has a key shareholder in Najib’s own brother.
Nizam, who is married into Taib’s uncle Rahman’s family, also has a privileged position amongst the Sarawak Malay elite, who control the state’s BN coalition through the support of a select group of key Dayak leaders.
This post has been edited by feekle: Mar 22 2019, 09:51 AM
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