Government liberal and reasonable - Tan Sri Adenan Satem

Stop stirring ‘rakyat’ on land policy, Adenan tells opposition reps

Borneo Post May 29, 2013, Wednesday

MINISTER of Special Functions Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem has called on the opposition elected representatives to stop inciting the ‘rakyat’ with regards to land policy.

When delivering his winding-up speech at the DUN sitting here yesterday, Adenan expressed his discontent with the opposition’s frequent use of expressions such as ‘illegitimate land grab’ which he deemed was intended to make the people angry.

He explained that the government has been practising fair and transparent land policy and never grab titled land or legitimate native customary rights (NCR) land without paying fair compensation.

In this sense, he highlighted that issues on returning NCR land that has been taken by the government does not exist at all.

“Please ascertain that the land is proven to be NCR before making baseless allegations. Go to the land office to check the data. All information are made public, there is nothing secretive about it. Do your research and
get the documents you need,” he advised when responding to an issue raised by Ting Tze Fui (DAP-Meradong) with regard to complaints of non-compensation by the government as claimed by certain individuals.

Adenan stated that there were incidents when individuals yet to receive their compensation made the complaint despite the majority of their respective community (affected individuals) having received payments.

Whenever the government pays compensation, it should be publicised so the public knows, he continued.

He also mentioned that the issuance of NCR land title is a continuous process. To date, a total of 208,217 titles have been issued under Section 18 of the Land Code.

As of April this year, the Land and Survey Department has received 575 applications for surveying under the government’s policy new parameter survey initiative. Of this lot, 377 applications involving an area coverage of 616,091 hectares (ha) have been approved for survey. The remaining 198 applications are still in the process.

Parameter survey work has been completed in 250 areas covering 334,144 ha. A total of 134 areas with a size totalling 167,945 ha has been gazetted as Bumiputera (Agriculture) Communal Reserve under Section 6 of the Land Code.

“This initiative is to benefit the Bumiputera community here. However, this effort has been misunderstood due to influences from irresponsible parties who claimed that the initiative was made to grab all NCR lands belonging to the people.”

Among other problems faced by the government in conducting the parameter survey was that officers were asked to conduct surveying work outside the approved boundaries, apart from locals disputing the boundaries.

To this, Adenan advised: “The government is willing to be liberal and reasonable in awarding the land. We understand the needs of the people but please don’t claim from ‘sunrise to sunset’, don’t claim the whole mountain or the whole river network.

“We can’t advocate greed.”