Stop twisting my words, Azis Jamman tells PBS

Deputy Home Minister Azis Jamman says only squatters where the majority of villagers are Malaysian will be converted into village reserves, not those with illegal immigrants.

KOTA KINABALU: The spat between Azis Jamman and Parti Bersatu Sabah has worsened with the federal deputy home minister blaming party leaders for trying to be “heroes” in twisting his words over the conversion of 30 squatter areas in Sepanggar into village reserves.

Azis, who is MP for Sepanggar, said PBS had manipulated his words, making it seem that he had insulted the Sabah indigenous people for living in squatter areas.

This comes following Azis’s response to PBS secretary-general Johnny Mositun that the residents in 18 illegal settlements in Inanam comprise largely of the Kadazandusun Murut (KDM) ethnic group.

The 18 squatter areas in Inanam are part of the 30 areas identified by Kota Kinabalu City Hall to be converted into village reserves in Sepanggar.

Yesterday, PBS Supreme Council member William Majimbun said Azis’s response was an insult to the KDM community.

“One again, a PBS leader is trying to spin my statement. I believe Majimbun has thoroughly studied my response to Mositun. It was Mositun who claimed these squatter areas were heavily populated by illegals.

“My advice to PBS leaders is enough with the lies and accept the truth that your party has failed, not just in running the administration of Sabah, but also in defending the KDM. You have failed to provide land to your own people when still in power.

“Today, PBS attempts to be a hero by lying and twisting facts and my statements, when it is Warisan that has struggled to gazette these lands and give it to deserving Sabah folks,” he said in a statement here.

He said the present Warisan-led Sabah government, in comparison with the PBS government, had approved and handed more land to the KDM community than when PBS was in power in the early 1990s.

“This was proven when Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal gave land titles to the KDM community in Keningau, Tenom, Pensiangan and many other districts in Sabah.

“This shows Shafie’s sincerity in ensuring that Sabahans are given land, which is something they have been denied for ages when Sabah was under the Barisan Nasional,” he said.

Azis said he would not have come out to talk on this matter if the Kota Kinabalu City Hall had not done its study first.

He said only squatters where the majority of its villagers are Malaysian will be converted into village reserves, not those with illegal immigrants.

Azis said he was the one who had pressured the Kota Kinabalu City Hall recently to demolish the homes of illegal immigrants in Sepanggar.

“This is aside from my instruction to the agencies under my ministry, such as the police and Immigration Department, to conduct raids and weed out the illegal immigrants in Sepanggar,” he said. - FMT