The majority shareholder in embattled logging company Seruan Gemilang Makmur Sdn Bhd (SGM) is demanding her cut of damages that the Pahang government has been ordered to pay the firm.

NONE Rose Ong ( left ), an Australian investor, has issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Umno-led state government for payment of some RM77 million due to SGM, based on the order of the Kuantan High Court in May 2007.

This comprises the principal sum of RM37,127,471.60, with accumulated interest of 8 percent per annum since December 2000. Ong is entitled to more than half of the sum.

If the Pahang government does not pay up, she will - through her Queen's Counsel lawyer - pursue the matter in the International Court of Justice in Hague.

NONE SGM director Saiyeed Ali Al-Habsyee ( right ) noted that "it is not right for the state government to keep delaying the payment".

"They clearly have exhausted all legal avenues for appeal," he told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today at which Ong was present.

Ong, who arrived from Adelaide last night, sent a letter to the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur this morning, pleading for its help in the matter.

"I just hope that they can somehow forward my case to the Malaysian government. The failure to pay by the state government is unfair for an overseas investor like me," she said.

She added that she had written to the Malaysian High Commission in Perth six months ago but had been stonewalled.

"This is the first time that the state government has refused to pay after being ordered by the court," claimed Saiyeed Ali.

Failed battle

nenasi umno logging before and after In a series of events which stretches back to March 1998, the Pahang government ‘awarded' a plum logging concession believed to be worth about RM100 million to the state Umno.

The concession allowed the party to log a 10,000-acre plot of land (about 40 sq km) in Nenasi, about 100km south of Kuantan. The party then gave its concession rights to Kuantan-based SGM for a paltry RM50,000 to extract, remove and sell all the timber.

adnan yaakob adnan yaakub In June 2002, SGM operations hit a snag when the state forestry office refused to issue a new licence to the company. It is believed that incumbent Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob (left ) wants to have nothing to do with the deal made by his predecessor Khalid Yaacob, a rival Umno leader.

Failing to get the state Umno to help in its bid to obtain the licence, SGM took its case to court in March 2003 and won after a four-year trial.

Although the Court of Appeal absolved Adnan - who became MB in May 1999 - of personal responsibility last October, it maintained that the damages would have to be paid.

The state government's appeal to the Court of Appeal was struck out on Feb 2, 2008 and its application to the Federal Court, seeking leave to appeal at the apex court, was dismissed on Sept 17 the same year.