“The report sounds as if we mistreated the villagers,” said Mambong Assemblyman Jerip Susil in a statement to MalayMail Online.
“The Bar Council never contacted me for their report.”
Jerip, the Sarawak assistant public health minister, stressed he was actively involved in briefing the villagers on the benefits of the Bengoh Dam.
“Professor Gabriel Tonga of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) did the socio-economic impact study,” said Jerip, the assemblyman for Mambong, formerly known as Bengoh.
He assured there was a free flow of information to the four affected villages.
“A liaison committee, under former Bengoh Assemblyman Sora Rusah, was set up to engage with the villagers. They had their own task force committee, headed by Atodieu Peu.”
The Bar Council, in its report released on Tuesday, claimed the affected villagers had not been given their monthly RM800 cost of living allowance for three years.
The three acres of land for each household was not sufficient for a family if it had more than six members, the report added.
“These lands could not be used to rear animals. We have noted that few of the villagers were employed.”
Most worked in the agricultural land at the Bengoh Resettlement Scheme (BRS) and the rest were unemployed, the report continued.
The Bar Council’s Committee on Orang Asli Rights, was on a fact-finding mission to Bengoh, Sarawak, from Sept 17 to 21 last year.
It found the affected Bidayuh from four villages — Kampung Taba Sait, Kampung Pain Bojong, Kampung Rejoi and Kampung Semban — either moved to higher ground outside the Bengoh Dam area or to the resettlement scheme in Padawan.
“No formal communication was received by the villagers from the contracting companies or the state government before construction began,” said the Bar Council Committee’s Report.
The report said the villagers were given verbal instructions to relocate or move to higher grounds when the dam was close to completion, prompting protests which resulted in a civil suit.
“There were attempts to gazette their lands as a national park, which contradicted their earlier application for recognition of native customary rights (NCR) for these lands.”
The Bar Council Report goes into the civil suit filed by the villagers in 2010 against the contractor and the Sarawak Government on their NCR lands, and a judicial review filed in 2013 after the said lands were gazetted as a national park.
By a consent order in December 2014, the High Court in Kuching recognised 2,592ha in Bengoh as NCR lands but this excluded land under the Bengoh Dam Reservoir area.
The affected villagers were awarded RM3.14 million.
The compensation, noted the Bar Council Report, did not include the value of farmed lands such as corn, pepper and cocoa.
“Also, the compensation awarded for farmed land was only per household and not for each husband or wife.”