In an interview with FMT, Sungai Buah and Bukit Tunggul Community Security and Development Committees (JKKK) committee member Tan Jahmat alleged the compensation offered to the villagers in 1993 did not even amount to RM20,000.
He also claimed villagers were in the dark about negotiations done on their behalf to vacate the land then and suspect someone in the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa) had deceived them.
“If it’s true we received RM2 million, why are our lives so difficult? If we had a lot of money our homes would not be like this, even then we are lucky that NGOs helped us build our homes,” he said, challenging government leaders who did not believe what he said to visit the village, located just 5 km from Putrajaya to see for themselves the problems they were enduring.
Tan also claimed that an “individual” from Jakoa threatened them and instructed the Orang Asli to accept whatever compensation was put on the table and vacate the land so a golf course could be built on it.
He also said that the “person” told the villagers to take their compensation and move to Kechau in Semenyih, failing which their houses would be demolished.
Tan said the villagers were promised land and houses if they moved to Semenyih, but this promise went unfulfilled and the Semenyih Orang Asli community did not accept their presence there.
This was why he said the villagers refused to move from where they currently live.
Last week, Jakoa, in a statement revealed that the land the village was sitting on, belonged to the Bukit Unggul Golf & Country Resort Sdn Bhd (BUGCR).
BUGCR became the new landowners when the rights to the land were surrendered to them in 1993 after a RM2 million compensation was supposedly agreed upon by the villagers. The agreement was allegedly signed by the then Selangor Jakoa director.
Jakoa issued the statement following a report on FMT that landowners had denied the villagers there electricity and water supply, basic utilities the Orang Asli had lived without since independence, despite being located next to Putrajaya, the country’s administrative centre.