The Borneo Project : Sarawak Chief Minister's family assets in Canada

Twin glass towers and a swish shopping complex at Preston Square in downtown Ottawa form just part of an enormous foreign property portfolio controlled in Canada by the family of Sarawak Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, according to our exclusive investigations.

These buildings alone are worth at least one hundred million dollars and generate a healthy rental income from some of Canada’s top corporations, including Xerox, Adobe and Sun Life, who rent office space and retail outlets. Numerous Canadian Government Ministries are also listed at the building.

Preston Square Ottawa – office space and shops [See photo in original online version]

The Preston Square development lies at the centre of the major Canadian property empire run by the developer Sakto, which was founded in the early 1980s by Taib’s college-aged son Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, his daughter Jamilah and his brother Onn Mahmud. It continues to be managed as a ‘family business’ by his now son-in-law, a Canadian, Sean Murray.

Commercial Skyscraper – Ottawa’s ‘Xerox Tower’ Complex. Sun Life and Adobe are some of the companies to rent space in this prestige property in Ottawa [See photo in original online version]

Taxpayers in Sarawak are entitled to ask how the Chief Minister’s modest 20,000 Malaysian Ringgit a month official salary has managed to help generate a property empire worth so much. It is also well known that the Taib family own further considerable assets in Malaysia and elsewhere.

Adjacent to the Preston Square commercial complex, Sarawak Report has further identified a luxury, multi-story residential building, also constructed by the Taibs and let for rent since 2006. The family have named the building The Adelaide, an Australian city popular with Taib Mahmud and his late wife Laila.

Sakto publicity boasts that these ”stylish urban rentals are lavishly equipped” with ”all the elements of contemporary flair” and assure clients that ”all units share the ease of abundant parking and the beauty of Preston’s Square manicured setting”.

We bring these revelations in the wake of the elderly Chief Minister’s admission last week that the Bumi remain ”poor and in difficulty”. In this way, he explained, they can be relied upon to stay "humble" and continue to vote for Barisan National (BN) at the next election. Many in Sarawak have questioned why the Chief Minister has done so little to improve the lives of his people during his thirty years in power and where the profits of decades of timber and oil extraction have been spent. Sarawak is Malaysia’s richest state in terms of natural resources and yet remains home to some of its poorest people.

Exclusive revelations show Canadian Government and top corporations rent from the Taibs

Sakto Development Corporation was set up in August 1983, according to official Ontario records, two years after Taib Mahmud took power. The Directors were Taib’s brother, Onn Mahmud, Taib’s son Mahmud Abu Bekir (aged just 20) and Taib’s daughter Jamilah, both still students. Three months later Onn also established Richfold Investment Limited in Hong Kong. He did so on the same day that another company, Regent Star Company Limited, was incorporated with a mutual director, Kin Kwok Shea, at the same office address. It was Regent Star Company which was identified by the Japanese Tax Authorities in 2007 as having received 32 million Malaysian Ringgit in kickbacks from Japanese timber exporters over the preceding seven years covered by their investigation. The Japanese shipping cartel is known to have been making such payments since the early 1980s, amounting to a total of hundreds of millions of ringgit.

Sakto publicity claimed the company invested heavily in its first year(1983), “acquiring over 400 residential units” according to its previous website.

Financial records also show that the company invested over $7 million Canadian Dollars during the first twelve months of its activities, $4.5 million of which was raised from its shareholders. In Canada shareholders are allowed to remain anonymous. By the end of its first decade (in 1993) Sakto’s Financial Report shows the company had assets of just under $40 million Canadian Dollars. Those acquisitions were backed by over $25 million in interest-free shareholder loans, for which “repayment terms had not been established”. Additionally, Sakto had received a further $3 million in non-interest bearing loans, $1.5 million of which was “payable to a company related to a shareholder”. Among the developments Sakto invested in was the construction of what the company described as a “Class A Office Tower”, completed on schedule and within budget in November 1989. Known as 333 Preston Street, this building houses the company’s current headquarters. In all but one of those years the company was declaring a loss and not paying taxes.

During the 1990s, the company claims it ”continued shaping [its] property portfolio through acquisitions and disposals of various assets” and since 2000 it has been involved in some of Ottawa’s biggest property deals. These included the news making purchase of over a quarter of a million square feet of commercial space in the flourishing high-tech business district of Kanata and other buildings for over $31 million Canadian Dollars. Much of this property was later sold on to a ’nominee’ company, however Sakto continues to lease and manage the buildings, apparently on behalf of the new purchasers.

Getting Bigger – Commercial Plaza Expansion [See photo in original online version]

The company has recently completed the building of a second phase of its Preston Street Commerce Plaza complex, which includes a second 16 story tower block and a large commercial centre. The Sakto website boasts that the centre represents “the very definition of Class A business space”.

Sean Murray, the current Director of Sakto, is a Canadian of Irish Catholic extraction. Records show he became involved in Sakto’s affairs in 1987, having reportedly met Jamilah Taib at University. After marrying Jamilah, a process that involved his conversion to Islam, Sean Murray took over as a Director of a number of the Taib property interests, however there is no indication that he has become an actual shareholder. Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib ceased to be listed as a Director of Sakto some years ago, however Onn Mahmud, Taib’s brother only resigned as a Director in 2004.

Aged 23 Jamilah Taib became Director of Sakto Development Corporation (between studies) then President

A number of Sean Murray’s family members are now employed at Sakto, which they describe as a family business. Some of Canada’s biggest commercial names rent space at their commercial and office properties, as well as numerous Canadian Government Ministries.

Major Shopping Mall – includes Chapters Bookstore [See photo in original online version]

Now prominent members of Ottawa’s social elite, Sean Murray and Jamilah Taib are frequently photographed at society occasions and listed as donors to the city’s National Gallery of Canada. Functions at their lavish Rockcliffe mansion have included fundraisers for the top Canadian school, Ashbury College and for multiple Irish charities, including the Catholic St Patrick’s Home and the Ireland Fund of Canada.

The couple drew considerable attention when they recently moved into their new house, recorded as being the second most expensive private home in Ottawa and costing them over $9.6 million Canadian Dollars. Guests have been known to joke that it is so vast that different wings must have different post codes.

Sean and Jamilah - Ottawa's Golden Couple [See photo in original online version]

The couple, separately and through Sakto, have also been regular donors to the Ontario Liberal Party. This has included contributions totalling $6,000 to Premiere Dalton Mcguinty’s campaign budget in 2003. In 2007 it was announced that eleven Ontario Ministries were relocating into Sakto’s Preston Square building. ”Bringing together 11 ministries at Preston Square, in the heart of our community, will make our government more accessible to the people of Ottawa and more cost-effective”, explained Yasir Naqvi, MPP for Ottawa Centre. The offices were officially opened by Dalton Mcguinty himself in April 2008.

Pink Palace – Jamilah’s ‘tacky’ Ottawa Mansion [See photo in original online version]

Sarawak Report’s exclusive revelations are likely to draw fierce criticism from Canadian environmentalists and human rights campaigners, who have highlighted the devastation caused by unsustainable logging in Sarawak. Over US$25 billion worth of timber has been exported from the state as a result of the rampant, unsustainable logging promoted by Taib Mahmud and the former Chief Minister, who was his uncle. Less than 3% of the original rainforest remains and many of its indigenous peoples are now destitute as a direct result.

High-Tech - another Sakto acquisition [See picture in original online version]

What is now clear is that Sakto’s position as one of Canada’s top development companies is closely linked to the Taib family’s questionable wealth and to tropical rainforest devastation. Canada’s booming property market of past years has exponentially increased the value of those investments, leaving the Taibs (but not the people of Sarawak) even more fabulously wealthy than before.

Taibs’ Lucrative Links with Ontario Government

The Taib family’s local acumen in channelling government expenditure into their business activities appears to have extended into Canada, according to the information gathered by Sarawak Report into their Canadian property empire.

Their company Sakto’s success in attracting tenancies from state organisations funded by the Canadian tax payer can only be described as enviably impressive. Their string of developments appear to be a magnet for government bodies in search of office space. Plaques outside Sakto’s key buildings testify to their trusted status as landlords to Provincial and Federal Government agencies.

Most noticeable is the mass occupancy by no less than eleven Ontario Government Ministries at the company’s Preston Square site. According to an official press release in 2007 by the Ontario Realty Corporation, the provincial government body responsible for locating offices, these are the:

Indeed, the Ontario Realty Corporation itself is listed as an occupant on the plaque of the complex’s ‘Tower III’ building.

Another Sakto building which has attracted public offices is 2745 Iris Street, which the company describes as a 6 story Class A Office Block. When Sakto purchased in 2001 the building was leased to the company Nortel, however the building is now occupied by federal Government of Canada offices.

2625 Queensview Drive, also hosts Ontario’s main government enterprise arm the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) program ‘to strengthen research linkages between academia and industry’.

Jamilah Taib, daughter of Taib Mahmud, who set up Sakto as a student in her tender early 20s is now a prominent Ottawa socialite and has been a regular supporter of the Canadian Liberal Party. She and her husband, Sakto Director Sean Murray and the company itself donated a total of $6 thousand dollars to the campaign costs of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s 2003 campaign.

Also in 2003, the soon-to-be Canandian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, leased 6,000 square feet in Sakto’s Preston Street offices to accomodate the ”War Room’ for his leadership campaign. The Liberal Party soon lost power, however, in the face of the so-called Sponsorship Scandal. Following a major public enquiry the party was exposed for having abused public money and trust by funnelling inappropriate contracts and rewards to private companies that had supported its campaigns. However neither Paul Martin himself nor indeed Sakto was implicated in this scandal.

Enthusiast – Dalton McGuinty’s Government spearheaded the co-location project into Sakto owned offices

Back in 2004, meanwhile, the incoming Ottawa Provincial Government, led by the current Liberal Party Premier, Dalton McGuinty, launched a new Official Plan and ‘Co-location Project’, according to Ontario Realty Corporation briefings. The briefings explain that ”The co-location involved the consolidation of employees representing 11 ministries from seven previous locations in Ottawa” and that the ORC oversaw an open and competitive lease search that ended with Sakto Corporation as the successful proponent.

The ORC briefings continue that ” The state-of-the-art facility, owned by Sakto Corporation, was built to high energy and environmental specifications” and that the “building is green in a number of ways”. However Canadian environment campaigners are likely to question whether such environment specifications have included an examination of Sakto’s sources of shareholder income and the appalling destruction wreaked by the Taib family on Sarawak’s world class environmental heritage.

On April 4, 2008 the government held a “grand opening” for the new Ontario Government offices at Preston Square at which Sakto Director, Sean Murray, husband of Jamilah Taib, posed for cameras as he cut a celebratory cake.

"The report was written in (MACC's) book, and we wanted a copy to protect ourselves and to make sure that nothing was added to or removed from it," Ahmad Nazib said. He added that they will try again soon but will come with two copies of a typed report which will require the attending MACC officer to acknowledge receipt.  "We were very inexperienced so now we know what to do. We'll likely try to lodge our complaint at the Putrajaya office instead," Ting said.

According to Wong, their complaint was based on article published by an anonymous blog, sarawakreport.org, which featured Taib Mahmud's property empire in Canada worth up to RM3 billion.  The allegations also implicated Taib's children and siblings, who were said to have a slice of the large empire each.  Asked about the credibility of the allegations, he said: "The articles have been available online for a while and if they were wrong, Taib would have taken legal action."  Ahmad Nazib added that their responsibility was only to lodge a complaint and for MACC to investigate its credibility, pointing out that they were not representing any political party.  "We know of complaints made to Sarawak MACC which are not investigated so we are taking the opportunity of lodging one in the peninsula where we are now based, hoping for a better outcome," he said.  He added that the trio are aware of the identities of the "concerned citizens" behind the Sarawak Report blog, but "cannot disclose them yet".

In a statement later, MACC explained that Section 29(4) of the MACC Act 2009 bars the commission from providing copies of reports lodged. Under this Act, a report shall be “kept secret and shall not be disclosed by any person to any person other than officers of the commission and the public prosecutor, until an accused person has been charged in court for an offence under this Act or any other written law in consequence of such report, unless the disclosure is made with the consent of the public prosecutor or an officer of the commission of the rank of commissioner and above.”