Osman
KOTA KINABALU: State Land and Survey Department director Datuk Osman Jamal yesterday denied that incidence of land grabbing still occurs in Sabah.
“It is true that there were two companies involved in Tongod before, and we have learned from this and made changes. After 2007, there have been no more of such incidence,” he said.
He added that companies were no longer given approval for lands in Sabah since then.
However, land is still being developed by government agencies aimed at eradicating poverty, he said.
Osman, who was irritated by an earlier presentation by UMS senior lecturer from the School of Social Sciences, Dr Gaim James Lunkapis, stressed that he had to explain the matter for the sake of the State government’s future.
“Someone has used the term ‘land grab’. The use of the word is very, very wrong,” he said.
Dr Gaim, in his presentation entitled “A critical reflection on the implementation of the communal title in Sabah” had used the term ‘land grab’.
However, Dr Gaim also specifically mentioned that the term was used in the article he used as a reference for his presentation and that it was in no way connected to Sabah.
“This was used for the article which focused on Ethiopia and Africa,” he said.
At the same time, he also spoke of the need to assess the development of the communities that have been given the communal title.
He added that the main aim of the communal title was towards poverty eradication, but at the same time questioned why trees such as rubber that were already generating income for a farmer were cut down to make way for the planting of oil palm trees once the land becomes part of the communal title.
“We are so concerned on the economy of scale and we open large plantations, sometimes forgetting that in the middle of that land, there is a family that is already self-sufficient,” said Dr Gaim.