Kg Setia Jaya residents unhappy with low offer for moving out

 

Kampung Setia Jaya folk say the TAR College Education Foundation, the land-owner, had offered each household RM30,000 to RM40,000 to move.

KUALA LUMPUR: Some 500 residents in Setapak here are claiming they are being unfairly evicted by their landowners without decent compensation.

On Dec 11, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered the villagers to vacate their houses and gave them 18 months to do so after finding that the TAR College Education Foundation was the legal owner of the land on which the village stands on.

Kampung Setia Jaya folk say the TAR College Education Foundation offered each household RM30,000 to RM40,000.

However, the residents say the money offered is too little and they prefer to be given a home.

The residents also claimed they were early settlers from the 1970s and were legal residents with water and power supply, albeit without any land grants.

Zainal Abidin Napi.

Pioneer settler Zainal Abidin Napi, 65, said the landowner’s cash offer did not make sense in view of the high land value in the area.

“Each of our homes are sitting on land worth RM3 million based on current values. Let us not accept RM30,000 or even RM100,000,” he said at a residents’ action committee meeting here.

Syafiq Noor Sham, 31, a third-generation resident, said the compensation was not enough as the residents were mostly from the B40 income group and could not afford to buy another house.

Syafiq Noor Sham.

“We were only offered RM30,000 as a ‘home subsidy’, with an extra RM10,000 if we choose to move,” he said.

“It is illogical and unfair for us as we have been here for the past 50 years.”

At least 90 ex-armed forces personnel are also among the residents of Kampung Setia Jaya, one veteran claimed.

FMT has contacted the foundation’s chairman, MCA chief Wee Ka Siong, for comment. - FMT