FELDA TO RETURN 306,000 ACRES OF LAND

By : DATUK KONG HONG MING

FEDERAL Land Development Authority (FELDA) should return 306,000 acres of land to the State of Sabah because FELDA had breach its promise and reneged from its obligations to develop the land given to FELDA intended to serve the interest of the people of Sabah.

At the same time, Sabah BN State Government should be held responsible for its failure to protect the interest of the State and its people in the land settlement schemes undertaken by FELDA.

As a result, the State Government had sacrificed more than 306,000 acres of its prime agricultural land to the Federal Government including thousands of acres of state land involving native customary land held by the local native communities such as in Tungku of Lahad Datu.

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

In 1979, the Sabah Berjaya State Government by the Sabah Chief Minister 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 further increased to more than 306,000 acres.

In the written agreement, FELDA had agreed to establish the Selection Committee to manage the selection and engagement of settlers for the settlement scheme. FELDA should appoint at least two (2) members representing the Sabah State Government as members of the Selection Committee consisting of a total of four (4) members with a FELDA member as its chairman.

FELDA had also agreed that a settler selected by the Selection Committee shall be entitled to, amongst other things, be engaged in the development and maintenance of the allocated land subject to payment of wages and dividends. FELDA was required to provide a housing plot of land to each settler and his family together with a dwelling house built on it within the residential land of the scheme.

In fact, FELDA only used less than 10% of the land allocated to it by the State Government for the intended settlement scheme involving only about 1,500 settlers each allocated with 14 acres of land.

All good things came to an end for Sabah after FELDA had taken over the land from the State, the Federal Government, in breach of its obligations under the agreement, decided not 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 the Federal Government or FELDA did not relinquish or return the land back to the State despite having abandoned its original objective for land allocated by the State Government.

The present BN State Government should explain why it had allowed FELDA to deviate from its original objective and why the BN State Government had failed to enforce the written agreement signed during the Berjaya Government?

Instead, FELDA continued to occupy and develop the massive acreage of land into oil palm plantation as landowner utilizing public funds and generating billions of revenues and profits for the benefit of the Federal Government. I am not surprised the revenues from Sabah had contributed substantially to the RM400 million FELDA office complex built recently in Kuala Lumpur.

Judging from the development within FELDA scheme in Tungku at Lahad Datu which is akin to a township, the State Government has indirectly allowed the creation of a new federal territory within the State of Sabah after Labuan.

In Tungku, FELDA manages its own security force and control and restrict the usage of public road at certain hours of the day. FELDA has its own infrastructure including power plant and water supply whereas ironically, the local communities adjacent to FELDA township are still without any basic facilities such as piped water and electricity supply.

Like the petroleum saga, the FELDA settlement scheme involving the loss of more than 306,000 acres of State land was another bad deal from the Federal Government at the expense of the State of Sabah and its people.

It is grossly unfair and reflects the arrogance of the Federal BN Government towards the State of Sabah.

This is another case of the BN Federal Government having reneged from its obligations to the people of Sabah.

I urge the BN State Government to take immediate step to enforce the agreement including to recover ownership of the land from FELDA for the benefit of the State and its people who are landless since it was FELDA that had abandoned the settlement scheme and did not honour its part of the bargain under the agreement.

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

It is time for the Sabah BN component parties and their elected members to stop playing lip service to the people when they have been parts of present BN government for years. It is their duty to demand the Federal Government led by UMNO to channel and invest all the revenues and profits taken from FELDA schemes in Sabah to the State Government for development purposes or to demand for the return of the 306,000 acres of land back to the State.

- Sabahkini