STATE GOVT SHOULD BE MORE PROACTIVE IN HELPING NATIVES – DR JEFFREY

State govt should be more proactive in helping natives – Dr Jeffrey

KOTA KINABALU April 5, 2012: The state government should be more proactive in helping natives in the state economically so that they do not resort to selling their lands in order to survive, STAR Sabah chairman Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said.

Dr Jeffrey said this when asked to comment on the Barsian Nasional (BN) government’s claim that it had stopped giving out land titles to natives because the natives were selling their lands to outsiders.

“You don’t blame the natives selling the land when the government is not helping them economically. The government is also not processing their land applications swiftly and these people need to survive.

“You cannot blame these people because they have no economic base; the government is not helping them to develop the land to generate income. So at the end of the day it falls back to the government.

“The majority of natives want the land because it is their survival and you will find that only a small portion is selling their land and these people are the ones who are desperate because they are poor,” he said during a press conference on the unveiling of STAR Sabah’s Land and NCR Reforms Masterplan yesterday.

He also said the government’s introduction of communal titles as a measure to prevent natives from selling their land was not helping for a few reasons.

“One, by giving communal title the way they are doing right now, they are depriving the natives of their native customary rights because the land they are alienating are what the villagers have applied for.

“Two, when you give a communal title, the decision makers who decide on the joint venture and such, are not the native owners but the stakeholders. So this means that as far as the villagers are concerned, the land does not belong to them.

“I think if the government is really sincere, they should give communal land title on land which have not been applied for and help the villagers to process their land application as speedily as possible so that they can have ownership on the land and develop it,” he said.

On the differences between SAPP and STAR Sabah’s masterplan on land reforms, Dr Jeffrey said STAR’s was more focused, problem targeted.

STAR Sabah, according to him, has a clearer policy and will be more comprehensive.

He added that as he had been involved in the administration of the state since way back in the 1960s, he had gone through all these problems and processes.

“I never had the chance to do something and I would like to do something now,” he said.

Dr Jeffrey also added that STAR Sabah would review all controversial projects, including the agropolitants as well as lands under FELDA, as well as FELCRA projects.

“If you look at agropolitants at the moment, who have benefited? What is in the mind of the government, we don’t know so all this need to be reviewed, same as FELDA which has not achieved its original objective.

“I don’t understand why the government, after seeing all this does not try to resolve the issue. This is due to the fact that the government is not really the government of Sabah, it is the proxy government of Malaya,” he opined.