One of these people is building a RM33 billion city in the Philippines. Guess who

On a sunny morning on July 18th, 2024, camera shutters clicked away as a group of men, shovels in hand, stood poised over freshly turned soil. Among them were representatives from the Malaysian company, JJC Group Development Asia Sdn Bhd (henceforth JJC), and government officials.

They were there for a groundbreaking ceremony that would launch a sleepy rural town into a state-of-the-art smart city. At this point, you may be thinking, Oh awesome, wish them luck. Moving on to the next story now— and that’s where we’d stop you.

Cos here’s the thing: while the company funding this project is Malaysian, this city is not anywhere in Malaysia. In fact, it’s about 1800km away from KL, which takes us all the way to Bataraza…. in the Philippines. And did we mention the cost of this project? The headline gave it away but here it is again: RM33 billion or rather RM32.898 billion as of today’s exchange rate. FYI, that’s roughly the same amount it took to build Putrajaya. Back in the 90’s. On government funds. 👀

With that much money at stake, you’d assume there’d be some buzz about this whole thing. But chances are, you haven’t heard a peep about this project, and honestly, we hadn’t either. The only way came across this was through a tip off by a Filipino friend of ours.

So why the lack of media attention? Why spend so much in the Philippines? But perhaps the most pressing matter is this: just who is behind this company with deep enough pockets to pull this off? To answer all these questions, we did what any self-respecting Sherlock would do. We turned to the internet.

Lo and behold…

JJC Group Development Asia has no digital footprint whatsoever

Nichts. Nada. You wanna hear that in Espanyol?

Seriously, no company website. No past projects. Not even a Facebook page where a bored admin uploads vague motivational quotes. It’s like they appeared out of thin air, ever so ready to drop RM33 billion on a smart city in a foreign country.

And speaking of that smart city, the only thing we could find in relation to JJC, was articles from a couple of local news outlets reporting on the project.

The gist of it is this: the project is a collaboration between the local government of Bataraza and JJC that aims to develop this mining town into a sustainable city. It will span 2000 hectares (that’s nearly 3000 Tesco’s side by side btw) and will take 5-7 years to complete. As for what this smart city entails, well, get yourself a drink cos this list is a long one:

• An international airport
• An international seaport
• Hotels
• A resort
• A convention centre
• A stadium
• An amusement park
• A university
• Facilities for transport, power and water services
• A shopping mall
• A pineapple themed Bataraza Tower

All of that…. in this strip of land:

If you’re reading this and nodding along, but at the back of your mind you’re going, still tho… why Bataraza? Well, JJC believes that by creating more jobs locally, this project could help reduce the number of undocumented Filipinos coming into Sabah, especially since Bataraza is just a stone’s throw away. Turns out, this is a serious ongoing issue and in 2024 alone, Malaysia has already deported over 3000 undocumented Filipino migrants. So, sure, JJC’s goal sounds pretty noble.

It doesn’t quite detract from their cause, but it’s interesting to note that Bataraza wasn’t the first pick for this project. It was supposed to launch in Puerto Princesa, which you can also see on the map. But apparently the company’s proposal didn’t get the city government’s green light.

So, with a still hefty gap in information, we decided it was time to take a more official route.

We bought JJC Group Development Asia’s SSM data

Right off the bat, a couple of things stood out. The first being the incorporation date.

According to this highly reliable document, the company was created just over a year ago. You might think it’s unusual for a pretty new company with no public history to be behind a massive project worth RM33 billion. But maybe it could be fine if this company was a Joint Venture (JV) or Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) established specifically for this project? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Then there’s the fact that their share capital is only RM100,000. Again, in comparison to the worth of their project, and the potential debts they might incur, that’s like pocket change. For a little bit of trivia, when a company goes bankrupt or gets sued, the compensation technically can’t exceed the amount of the share capital. Or in other words, katakan they owe someone a billion ringgit, shareholders only lose the money that they’ve put into the company. So make of that what you will.

The SSM data also gave us a name we could finally look into: Jismit Japong, who so happens to be the company’s president. And this was reflected in him being both the director and the company’s largest shareholder by quite a large margin.

It’s worth noting that the company is based in Sabah and all the directors seem to be Sabahans too. So, maybe that’s why they’re super focused on the issue of Filipino migrants… or maybe not. Honestly, we can’t be sure. We did try to reach out to the company for clarification, but that went south pretty quickly. First, they told us they weren’t at liberty to share any info, then they insisted we reveal our location. Last-last we were still left on read.

Can’t lie, that interaction kind of scared the crap out of us. But since we were already in deep, we thought we might as well really dig. And as it turns out…

JJC’s president, Jismit Japong, may have a few skeletons in his closet

Jismit Japong’s past is, to put it mildly, eventful.

Until August 2024, Jismit served as President of the Sabah branch of Muafakat Nasional, a coalition that’s led nationally by Annuar Musa. After stepping down, he purportedly dissolved the Sabah branch and is now in the process of forming a new organisation called Parti Tempatan Rakyat Sabah. Before this, from February 2018 to possibly around 2021, he was the president of yet another organisation, Pertubuhan Gagasan Ekonomi Bumiputera Sabah (PGEBS).

Jismit also tried his hand in politics. He ran as an independent candidate in the 2020 Sabah state elections, but didn’t win.

His brushes with the law, however, are where things get interesting. In 2019, he was charged alongside another man with dishonestly misappropriating property worth RM34,000. There’s no record of a conviction though. And back in 2013, while linked to the State Reform Party (STAR), Jismit was charged with impersonating an assemblyman in a scheme to cheat a man. But because the complainant couldn’t be found, the case ended up in a Dismissal Not Amounting to Acquittal (DNAA). (Yes, the same ruling that got Malaysians up in arms over Zahid Hamidi’s Yayasan Akalbudi case.)

Look, we’re not saying a person can’t leave their past behind. But when you put all of this together…

Something just doesn’t quite add up with JJC Group Development Asia

Maybe we’re being paranoid, but the deeper we dig, the more questions seem to pop up. At this point, we probably have more questions than answers. Just take a look at these and see if you’re with us so far:

1. How does a company that’s just over a year old and with not even a website land a RM33 billion international deal?
2. Why did JJC act so cagey when we reached out, even going so far as to ask for our location?
3. Why did the initial proposal to Puerto Princesa fall through?
4. Did the local government in the Philippines do their due diligence when they accepted this proposal or are there connections we’re not aware of?

This whole thing frankly takes a turn for the worse knowing that someone has already accused them of being a scam. On July 26th, Jeric Norman alleged that JJC officials were demanding an upfront RM1.2 million from contractors who wish to participate in the project. His claims have been refuted by JJC ofc, who also provided a contact number for those who wanted to make further enquires, *cough* the very number we messaged *cough*.

To wrap this up here feels a bit like a cliffhanger, doesn’t it? But it seems like everywhere we turn, we’re hindered by lack of information from JJC themselves. Guess we won’t really know the full story until this article is published and JJC responds with another carefully crafted statement. Rest assured, we’ll update when that happens.

But for the everyday Malaysian, there’s something we’ve gotta consider here. If a company like JJC can sapu a massive RM33 billion project overseas with so little info out in the open, what does that say about transparency and governance back home?