Plan to abolish communal title an injustice to natives, says Musa
KINABATANGAN: The opposition’s plan to abolish the communal land title scheme will be a great injustice to native communities who long for proper ownership of lands they deserve.
Chief Minister Tan Sri Musa Haji Aman said the pledge made by Parti Warisan Sabah president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, should the opposition win the 14th general election, sounds like a dubious promise as he had failed to say how it would be better in protecting the interest of the native communities.
“Shafie also tries to hoodwink the people by saying they will only get ‘empty land’ through the scheme. He obviously does not understand the concept of the communal title scheme,” he said.
He said when the communal land title scheme was introduced in 2010, it was introduced with the noble intention of providing land to natives who had no land to their name and at the same time ensured the plots would not fall into the hands of others, outsiders especially.
Musa said as of August last year, 72 communal grants had been issued benefiting 10,462 people from 213 villages across Sabah. The total size of land they now owned stretches nearly 120,000 hectares.
“This is the scheme Warisan wants to abolish within the first 100 days in office. If the scheme is abolished, all efforts taken to protect the interest of the natives would go down the drain, especially from opportunists who will entice with offers to landowners that will end up on the losing end of the deal,” he said.
He said the communal land title scheme was introduced in the first place to prevent them from selling lands to outsiders, expedite issuance of lands to the native communities, defend their interest, provide proper largescale development plans for the plots and eventually eradicate poverty. He added that at the time when the government introduced the scheme, the department discovered that only 40 percent of native land owners had actually developed their land.
“This was why one of the conditions for the communal land scheme implementation was to ensure a comprehensive development plan be put in place before its issue, with the agreement of all stakeholders,” he said at Suan Lamba, Kinabatangan Nation Building Homes (RBN) ground breaking ceremony, jointly organised by Sabah Land Development Board and Felcra Berhad. Musa said this meant that basic infrastructure, houses of worship, community centres, drainage, roads, water supply among others would need to be put in place when the communal lands are developed.
He said the land issued could not be sold without the collective agreement of every name within the title and also could not be individually transferred.
Local communities, including the land owners themselves, will also be given priority when it comes to job opportunities derived from the development of the communal lands. This will have great economic impact to the local communities and curb migration of the local populace.
“Shafie chose to belittle the scheme for obvious reasons, to seek political mileage now that he is no longer with Barisan Nasional and refuse to acknowledge how it had benefited the native communities including those from his constituency, Semporna,” he said.
He said Warisan’s plan to not ‘just give empty land’ was also demeaning because in the first place the plots in the scheme were normally lands where native communities had lived and toiled since the time of their ancestors or those near their villages.
During the ceremony, Musa also handed over the 2017 Attributable Profit mock cheque to Sabah Felcra participants, cost of living incentive mock cheque and dividends to Suan Lamba SLDB Settlement Plan.