Longstanding dispute over 6,000
acres of land in Sungai Koyah, Sukau could spell trouble for Barisan Nasional
(BN) in the coming general elections, according to BN backbencher Datuk Saadi
Abdul Rahman.
He said the villagers affected
were beyond frustration after the authority concerned left them in the lurch
for years, and may resort to giving their votes to the opposition if the
government failed to intervene urgently to return their land.
“It is like a love triangle now,
with three parties competing for the same land. On one side are 400
smallholders who were given the rights to develop the land by the then Berjaya
government, claiming they have been cheated and robbed of their rights by an
oil palm company.
“On the other side is the oil
palm company, which claimed to have been given approval by the authority as
well as the villagers to jointly develop the land into a smallholder scheme.
And then there are the illegal settlers who have encroached on some areas of
the land since 10 to 15 years ago.
“In this tug of war situation,
the local villagers who are the ones who do not get anything. So, it is
understandable they are very upset and if this continues, they may punish the
government.
There are 400 of them, if each has a wife and four children eligible to vote, it’s already something like 2,000 lost votes. If this is the case, I may very well lose in the coming election,” he said when debating the 2013 State Budget during the State Assembly sitting yesterday.
Saadi, who is also Sukau
assemblyman, said the villagers’ plight started after the Bursa Malaysia-listed
company managed to acquire the blessing to develop the land in 1999.
The company, he said, was allowed
to be the implementing agency for the proposed oil palm smallholding scheme,
with several conditions set in place to protect the rights of the villagers,
including paying a share and dividend to all 400 participants.
However, the company started to
break its promises soon after it managed to get signatures of the participants
involved, which was required in order for them to legally develop the land.
The company, claimed Saadi, had
not made any dividend payments to the participants.
“The villagers’ action committee
has given to me a memorandum demanding for their rights to be protected by the
government and it is my responsibility as the elected representative for my
constituents to see it done,” he said.
To resolve the issue, Saadi
proposed two options, including taking back the land in question and issuing a
communal title to the villagers before helping them to develop it as a MESEJ
project.
The other option, he said, is to
just give the land to the 400 original participants and let them develop their
respective lands on their own.
On another issue, Saadi requested
the government to consider building a new middle school at Kampung Batu Putih
to help cater for the growing population in Sukau, as there were currently only
middle schools in the whole district.
He also proposed that the Local Government and Housing Ministry give additional allocation for Pekan Baru Sukau project next year.
He noted that the ministry
received about RM108 million in allocation under the 2013 Budget, as compared
to only RM39 million under 2012 Budget. Saadi also suggested the special
Sentuhan Kasih allocation be increased from the current RM500,000 to RM1
million for every constituency, considering it has greatly benefitted the poor
across the State.
Source: TheBorneoPost Online 23 Oct 2012