Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) don Fadzillah Majid Cooke sees the problem of untitled native land - considered as state land - in Sabah as a never-ending one.
By last year end, the Department of Lands and Surveys (LSD) was sitting on a backlog of over 300,000 land applications.
She also cautions that those awarded communal native land titles under a fast-track system, have no capacity to monitor and exercise their rights if such land is developed in partnership with state government agencies or the private sector.
Her take comes in the wake of an announcement by the LSD on Thursday that it will issue communal titles for 90,000 acres in 2011. The LSD was reporting a collection of RM260.6 million in premium and quit rent for the year.
"The processing of native titles is slow and this has resulted in a tremendous backlog," she said. "It is contentious because of overlaps between locals and non-locals."
The LSD as a result, she continued, has the capacity to process only 16,000 applications a year.
The university don, who has done some field studies on the titling of native land in Sabah, added that none of the native land on Bonggi Island is titled, only 10 to 20 percent of similar property in Kiulu, and five to 30 per cent in Kinabatangan and Lahad Datu had titles.
Elsewhere, it was discovered, that only five percent of native land in Tongod and seven percent in Ranau were titled.
Perception, stressed Fadzillah, is one problem dogging the LSD in the issuance of native land titles.
"It's said that the indigenous people are prone to sell their titled native land," said Fadzillah. "But then there's no date to show this trend. Where are the records of those who supposedly sold their NT (native title) land?"
Land rights remain nominal
Communal titles meanwhile, offered under an amendment in November last year to Section 76 of the Sabah Land Ordinance, has led to charges of inequality in the event of joint-venture (JV) developments on such land, according to Fadzillah.
"One issue is inequality in respect of indigenous access to communal land that has become part of the plantation industry through JVs as compared with smallholder development," said Fadzillah.
"The other issue is the quality of life and well-being of the indigenous people on smallholder land as compared with plantation land."
Fadzillah concedes that institutions such as the law recognise indigenous rights. Again, these rights remain nominal as their practical recognition depends on the capacity to exercise them.
However, it appears that rights and empowerment don't always go together indigenous people. Having the right to land access is one thing, she reiterated, but being empowered to exercise this right is another.
As an example, she cited the JV system of land development where "the indigenous don't have the capacity to monitor and exercise their rights".
Approval process faster
LSD director Osman Jamal, the first member of the local Bugis community to head the department, is not as pessimistic as Fadzillah.
He hopes to expedite applications for land titles, albeit communal land titles, through the adoption of a new method – F2F (Field to Finish) – involving the use of ICT later this year. His target is to issue land titles, communal and not individual, within three months compared with the present 24 months for most applications.
He cites successes in other areas.
"We have already shortened the process of seeking approval for TOL – temporary occupation licence – for land applications to extract stones, soil and sand from 24 months to six months," said Osman.
The LSD has also sped up processing work for land deal registration from January last year, he added. This follows the implementation of the Land Dealings Electronic Submission System.
As a result, 38,890 land deals were registered by November last with total earnings from memorandum of charge and memorandum of transfer standing at RM2.5 billion.
Communal titles
Re-visiting the pledge of communal titles for 90,000 acres of land this year, Osman disclosed that the areas involved were all poverty-stricken with a high percentage of landless people.
The areas identified so far include Pitas/Kota Marudu, Sook, Keningau, Nabawan, Tongod, Beluran, Kinabatangan and Sipitang.
"Issuing communal titles is on way to resolve claims on Native Customary Rights and overlapping land applications," he said, while declining to touch on the issue of individual native titles.
This is the second such time that the LSD will be issuing communal titles since the amendment to the Sabah Land Ordinance in November last year.
Two communal titles were issued in Nabawan and one in Lalampas (Tongod District) recently. Apparently, the applications were put in for individual titles long before the Sabah Land Ordinance amendments.
Communal titles, the state government hopes, will help avoid the problem of the indigenous people selling their land, overcome the backlog of land application, make customary land more productive through large-scale oil-palm development by ways of JVs, and help alleviate poverty by making land available to the hardcore poor under the fast tracking system.
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