SABAH DEMANDS RETURN OF 306,000 ACRES (BIGGER THEN PERLIS) FROM FELDA

PKR Sabah demands return of 306,000 acres from Felda

KOTA KINABALU Feb 13, 2012: The chairman of the Land Development and Natural Resources bureau of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Sabah Datuk Kong Hong Ming said the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) should return 306,000 acres of land to the State because they had breached and reneged from their obligation to develop the land given to it which was intended to serve the interest of the people of Sabah.

AGREEMENT: Kong holding a copy of the agreement.

Kong said the state government had failed to protect the interest of the state and its people in the land settlement schemes undertaken by Felda and should therefore be held accountable and responsible for the omission.

“As a consequence, the state government has sacrificed more than 306,000 acres of its prime agricultural land to the Federal Government, including thousands of acres of state land with native customary rights held by the local native communities in Tungku.”

“As the government of the day, BN should explain to the people over its failure and incompetence for allowing Felda to deviate from the original objective after having allocated some 306,000 acres of State land to them for land settlement schemes intended to serve the benefit of the people of Sabah.”

According to Kong, the then Berjaya Government in 1979 had invited Felda to develop about 200,000 acres of land in the district of Kinabatangan for the purpose of settlement scheme subject to the conditions of a written agreement signed on behalf of the Sabah State Government and Felda.

“The total acreage was later increased to 250,000 acres covering Kinabatangan and Lahad Datu in 1983 and later increased to more than 306,000 acres,” he said.

Kong said, in the agreement Felda had agreed to establish a selection committee to manage the selection and engagement of settlers for the settlement scheme and Felda were required to appoint at least two (2) members representing the Sabah State Government as members of that committee which consisted of a total of four (4) members with a Felda member as chairman.

He further disclosed that Felda had also agreed that a settler selected by the committee should be entitled to, amongst other things, be engaged in the development and maintenance of the allocated land subject to the payment of wages and dividends.

Felda were also required to provide a plot of land to each settler and his family together with a dwelling house built on it within the residential area of the scheme.

“In fact, Felda only utilised less than 10 per cent of the land allocated to them by the State Government for the intended settlement scheme involving only about 1,500 settlers who are each allocated with 14 acres of land,” he said.

He said all good things came to an end for Sabah after Felda took over the land from the State and the Federal government, in breach of their obligations under the agreement, ceased to take any new settler in January 1990.

The reason given was that the Federal Government wanted to reduce its financial burden in providing infrastructure and basic facilities within the schemes.

“But neither the Federal Government nor Felda relinquished or returned the land to the State despite having abandoned its original objective for land allocated by the State Government,” Kong pointed out. “The present State government should explain why it had allowed Felda to deviate from their original objective and why the State government had failed to enforce the terms of the written agreement signed during the Berjaya Government?” he asked.

Instead, he said, Felda continued to occupy and develop the massive acreage of land into an oil palm plantation as landowners utilising public funds and generating billions worth of revenue and profits for the benefit of the Federal Government.

“I am not at all surprised that the revenue derived from Sabah had contributed substantially to the RM400 million Felda office complex built recently in Kuala Lumpur.

“Judging from the development within Felda Sahabat in Tungku which is akin to a township, the State Government has indirectly and unwittingly allowed the creation of a new federal territory within the State of Sabah after Labuan,” he said.

Kong said, in Tungku, Felda manage its own security force and control and restrict the usage of public road at certain hours of the day.

Felda have their own infrastructure including power plant and water supply, whereas ironically, the local communities adjacent to the Felda township are still without any basic facility such as piped water and electricity supplies.

He said similar to the petroleum saga faced by Sabah, the Felda settlement scheme has involved the loss of more than 306,000 acres of State land and is another bad deal from the Federal Government at the expense of the State of Sabah and its people.

“It is grossly unfair and it reflects the arrogance of the Federal BN government towards the State of Sabah. This is another case of the Federal government having reneged from its obligations to the people of Sabah,” Kong stressed.

“I urge the State government to initiate immediate steps to enforce the agreement including recovering the ownership of the land from Felda for the benefit of the State and its people who are landless since it is Felda which abandoned the settlement scheme and did not honour their part of the bargain under the agreement,” he said.

He added it is not difficult to understand why Sabah has become one of the poorest states in Malaysia after 48 years of nation building under the BN government.

“It is time for the component parties of Sabah BN and their elected representatives to stop paying lip service to the people when they have been part of the present BN regime for years.

“It is their duty to demand the Federal Government led by UMNO to channel and invest all the revenue and profits derived from the Felda schemes in Sabah to the State Government for development purpose or to demand for the return of the 306,000 acres of land back to the State,” he said.