Wong was elaborating on his remarks at the state assembly sitting during which he also called on the Sabah Government to look into ways to streamline its procedures on issuing native titles (NT) as the present approach takes too long and was cumbersome. “The Sabah Land Ordinance should be amended to defend the rights of Natives, especially in terms of their rights to own native titled lands.”
There are applications and granting of land titles that took decades to complete, added Wong. “This makes no sense at all.”
“In many cases, land applications were approved in the 90s but were only delivered in 2000. Several land titles were only registered at the end of 2000 though the land applications were approved in 1970.”
In most cases, lamented the lawmaker, the landowners had already long gone to their graves by the time the land titles were delivered. He urged the government not to continue to think that the village people were “naïve, greedy and the like” and would sell their land for quick profit. “The government must be sensitive to the problems faced by the people.”
“If the government was really worried that the Natives will sell their lands, the problem can be addressed through law to insert a clause in native titles to prevent such land from being sold for a certain number of years after being registered.”
He blames red tape behind the cumbersome procedures behind issuing land titles coupled with the fact that villagers being subsistence farmers in most cases were not well to do and could not afford the high cost of land administration. “The process to obtain lands take a very long time and the cost to survey between 10 to 15 acres could go up to RM10,000.”
“Distance is also a problem since villagers would have to travel for hours, sometimes even a day or two, to reach the district land office or the central land office in Kota Kinabalu.”
The NCR status itself should be clearly defined, said Wong, in bringing up another aspect of the native land issue. He thinks that this can be done by amending Sections 15 and 16 to further tighten the conditions for land to be considered under native customary rights (NCR). “The claimant must have stayed on the land for at least five years before claiming the land as NCR.”
“Section 16 should also be revised to ensure that the claimant can only be compensated if he or she has stayed on the land for between five to 10 years. If a landowner had stayed on the land for more than 10 years, then the land cannot be bought from him. The question of compensation does not arise.”
Those who had stayed on the land for more than 10 years must be given the land, he suggested, provided such property does not exceed 10 acres. “The next question is what to do once the natives were granted their respective lands. Most of them were too poor to commercially develop their lands and they don’t have access to capital or credit. The government can assist in such cases.”