Global Witness report Ta Ann clarification

A recent Global Witness report on WWF’s GFTN programme has in particular targeted Malaysian company Ta Ann. This company has replied with a statement refuting the allegations and claiming the legality and origin of its timber had been verified by TFT.

We wish to rectify this statement. TFT had organised a visit from 8th to 13th September 2003 to conduct a spot evaluation of the legality situation in a sample of the company’s mills and concessions, looking at the sourcing of their raw material and whether the operations would be in a position to be legally verified. This report therefore did not constitute a legality verification and only offered a picture of the situation at that time, in 2003.

On 10 May 2006, TFT carried out a Gap Assessment at the Ta Ann factory under the TTAP project. This Assessment can be compared to a “diagnosis” as it evaluated the situation of the factory at a specific point in time in relation to desired legality standards. Again the execution of a Gap Assessment can in no way be taken as a statement of legality verification, the company did not engage with TFT or TTAP after this time in order to achieve that aim. Indeed following these two visits, we have not been involved with Ta Ann, and as such we are therefore not in a position to comment on the legality of their operations at present.