British Taib aide slams his Malaysian master

Richard Curtis, the British group managing director of Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), might soon be replaced as top executive of Sarawak's largest corporation following his angry public complaints against Sarawak's long-term state government.

Sarawak has for thirty years been under the tight political control of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud (Taib) whose family holds the majority of CMS shares.

According to the Malaysian Insider, Curtis said at a public forum that the Sarawak government was "too slow" and that he was "embarrassed" and "depressed" over the state of affairs in Malaysia's largest state.

Ironically, Curtis himself plays a key role as aide to the Taib family that runs the state against which he is now lashing out in public. CMS has a track record of receiving untendered public contracts worth millions of dollars and holds a cement monopoly in Malaysia's largest state. The company has also massively benefited from the Bakun dam construction which has been labelled by Transparency International as a "monument of corruption".