Tycoon in legal tussle over timber licences

Tough call: Under Parti Warisan Sabah, the state government has decided that Pelangi Prestasi will not be issued with fresh timber licences. It has also imposed an entirely new set of preconditions in order to grant them.

A showdown between politics and business is set to unravel in the “Land Below the Wind”.

Centred on Sabah’s lucrative timber industry, a legal tussle has begun involving the Parti Warisan Sabah-led state government, financially-struggling timber concessionaire Sabah Forest Industries Sdn Bhd (SFI), SFI’s receiver and manager Grant Thornton Consulting Sdn Bhd and Pelangi Prestasi Sdn Bhd, a company related to one of the richest bumiputras in Malaysia, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary.