SIBU: TWO logging company supervisors detained under Op Tukul for their alleged involvement in corruption and illegal logging activities were charged at the Sessions Court here yesterday.
Lee Hock Liang, 63, who is an assistant camp supervisor, pleaded not guilty to offering a RM10,000 bribe to Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission senior assistant enforcement officer Sendry Ugi at a log pond in Sungai Antu Pala, Kanowit, near here at 2.05pm on April 25.
The bribe was for Sendry to not take action against Lee for allegedly transferring 300 logs from the log pond at Sungai Antu Pala via a tug boat without a permit.
Judge Nixon Kennedy Kembong set RM5,000 bail in one surety and fixed four days for hearing beginning Dec 9.
Earlier in the same court, Law King Chai, 47, was charged with offering RM2,000 to Inspector Mohamad Dzakriya Abdul Kader, who is attached to the Batu Kawa General Operation Force, at a logging area in Kampung Boyan, Jalan Selangau-Mukah, near here on Sept 8.
Law, who is a camp supervisor for another logging company, was alleged to have offered the bribe to Dzakriya as an inducement to not take action against him for an offence under the Sarawak Forestry Ordinance 1958, following his alleged involvement in illegal logging.
Nixon set bail at RM8,000 in one surety. He set the hearing within five days from Dec 15.
MACC prosecuting officer Katherine Nais prosecuted while Lee and Law were unrepresented.
The duo was among 12 individuals, including a district criminal investigation division police chief, who were apprehended during the operation, which was launched four months ago to investigate illegal logging activities in the state.
In Ipoh, Perak Forestry Department director Datuk Roslan Ariffin said efforts taken by the department to stem illegal logging had borne fruit with a significant drop in the activity.
He said illegal logging were rampant in Taiping and Hulu Perak, but they but were now under control.
“With our operations to keep loggers in check, illegal logging has slowed down,” he told the New Straits Times here yesterday.
He did not provide specific details about the drop.
Roslan said the department recorded its latest success with the arrest of three illegal loggers in Taiping on Monday evening.
“The trio, in their 40s, were picked up around Taiping town for encroaching the Changkat Niru Permanent Forest Reserve at Pondok Tanjung in Taiping,” he said, adding that 600ha of the forest reserve had been cleared.
Roslan said the department was building up a case against the three men and papers would be submitted to the legal adviser soon.
State MACC director Datuk Noraziah Abdul Manaf could not be reached for comment.
The New Straits Times front-paged a report on Monday that the Sarawak state government had lost RM45 million to illegal logging activities within just four months between May to August, and that billions of ringgit worth of losses were incurred by federal and state governments because of illegal logging.