Musa Aman

Early life and education

Musa Aman received his primary education in St. Paul primary school, Beaufort, Sabah. He attended Sabah College in Kota Kinabalu and All Saints secondary school for his secondary education. He pursue his tertiary education and received Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.

Business

He was interested in the world of business since his primary school days. In 1973, he pursue his business interests in Sandakan. He later put Syarikat Musman Holdings Sdn Bhd under his stewardship. He was the chairman for City Finance Berhad from 1983 until 1995. He later became the chief executive of Innoprise Corporation in 1995 and also the chairman for Sabah Softwood Berhad (under Innoprise Corporation) in the same year.

Early political career

His political career started on 8 March 1992, when he contested and won the Jambongan UMNO division chief's post (now known as Libaran division) and was appointed as Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) treasurer eight days later.

On 7 March 1995, a year after BN came to power in Sabah, Musa became the director of Sabah Foundation (Yayasan Sabah), a Sabah statutory body.

In March 1999 he resigned as the Sabah Foundation Director to contest in the state elections and defend the Sungai Sibuga State Legislative Assembly seat, defeating Ramli Noordin of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) by 4034 majority votes, the highest majority among the 24 seats contested by UMNO.

He moved up further in his political career when he was appointed Minister in the Chief Minister's Department under Datuk Osu Sukam in 1999.

On 27 March 2001, he became the Finance Minister in Chief Minister Chong Kah Kiat's cabinet. On 28 September 2001, Musa replaced Osu Sukam as the Sabah UMNO Liaison Committee chairman, which paved the way for him to be the Chief Minister.

Appointment as chief minister

Musa Aman took over the post of chief minister from Chong Kah Kiat on 27 March 2003. His appointment as Chief Minister marks the end of the rotation system used in Sabah whereby the Chief Minister post is rotated every two years among the three main ethnoreligious groups in Sabah: Christian Bumiputras, Muslim Bumiputras, and the Chinese.

Economic policy

Soon after taking his oath of office as Chief Minister, Musa Aman outlined his agenda for the state. He had set his priorities on agriculture, tourism and manufacturing, putting them in what he calls the state's 'Halatuju' development framework, and supporting them by placing human resource development high on his agenda.

To support the first pillar of his 'Halatuju' campaign, tourism, a commitment of RM1.4 billion in federal funds was secured towards the building of a new Kota Kinabalu airport terminal, which was completed in 2008, ahead of schedule. A part of the old Kota Kinabalu port with warehouse facilities dating back to the early 1900s was transformed into Jesselton Point, a modern port with a high-class ferry terminal and other facilities. Under Musa tourism registered significant growth; Tourist arrivals to Sabah grew from 1.25 million arrivals in 2003 to nearly 2.1 million arrivals in 2006. The growth justified a further capital input into the tourism sector, with over RM1 billion made available via Special Tourism Fund of RM400 million for small projects and RM700 million for larger projects.

To support the second pillar—agriculture—the state government broke new ground in combining agriculture and manufacturing sectors into one by promoting bio-agriculture. The establishment of Palm Oil Industrial Clusters (POIC) is an example of bio-agriculture that promises to move the state's agricultural products up the value chain in the commodity markets.

To support the third pillar, manufacturing, in 2006 a total of 92 manufacturing projects were granted approval in the state with a projected total investment value of RM4.9 billion.

Controversy

In April 2012, Musa Aman was linked to a timber corruption scandal as per the leaked Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) documents published by the website Sarawak Report. Musa was accused of having close relationship with Sabah timber trader Michael Chia, where the latter was detained in Hong Kong in 2008 for trying to smuggle S$16 million (RM40 million) to Musa. Sarawak Report further revealed that Michael Chia was responsible for Musa's sons expenses in Australia. Dato' Seri Anifah Aman, brother of Musa Aman, was also accused of being a secret beneficiary of lucrative timber licenses. Abdul Gani Patail, the Malaysian Attorney-General who is close to Musa family, was alleged to have blocked the MACC investigation into this case. However, Musa Aman denied his link with Michael Chia, while accusing Sarawak Report for defaming him.

On 11 October 2012, in a written reply to the Parliament, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said Musa Aman has been cleared of the alleged RM40 million kickbacks for timber licences by the Attorney-General's Chambers as "the funds were contributions to the Sabah Umno liaison body and not for the personal use of the chief minister". He also said that the Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and Malaysian Attorney-General chamber has cleared Musa of corruption after the Malaysian MACC has provided information in this case. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, refused to disclose the source of the political donation but he insisted that the money was funded through legitimate channels.

In response to the reply by Najib, Sarawak Report released another set of documents on 14 October which pointed the donors to Sabah and Sarawak timber tycoons. On 22 October, Nazri said that Michael Chia was never arrested and the S$16 million was actually frozen in an investment account in Hong Kong. This money was later cleared to be transferred to Swiss bank. As on 25 October, Hong Kong's ICAC refused to disclose any details regarding the probe which reportedly cleared Musa Aman from corruption charges.

On 1 November, PKR leaders and Sarawak Report revealed that Nazri's son was given American Hummer H2 by Michael Chia back in March 2011. This revelation raises the possible questions of conflict of interest between Nazri and Michael Chia. However, Nazri sees no problem with the ownership of the Hummer by his son. Nazri also said that he just merely read out the statement from MACC that has cleared Musa from corruption and he insisted that he has not influenced MACC in handling the Musa Aman case.

In April 2013, Reuters validated that the documents released by Sarawak Report are indeed genuine. Two of the timber firms confirmed with Reuters that the money was transferred to secure the logging contracts. MACC officials also told Reuters that the documents are authentic and Musa Aman was the focus of the investigation. On 27 February 2014, Michael Chia was convicted to 1-year jail sentence for misleading Datuk Agus Hassan into logging business by claiming that it was meant for UMNO's political donation in 2004.