Parti Warisan Sabah treasurer-general Terrence Siambun said Pairin’s offer to the people during the event was too sweet to believe.
The assemblyman for Moyog, which includes the dam site, claimed that Pairin could afford to promise “the stars and the moon” to the villagers as he was going to retire soon.
Pairin, who is also the state’s infrastructure development minister, said during the Nov 10 dialogue that more than 240 families living in Kampung Terian and Kampung Buayan would be generously compensated by the Sabah government.
He had presented a state proposal to give 0.12ha of residential land to each household, with a RM10,000 resettlement allowance, payment of “sogit” (customary fines) for burial grounds, as well as options to compensate for loss of crops and buildings.
He had said that each household would also receive 2.02ha of agricultural land and a RM500 monthly allowance for the next three years.
Pairin said the government would also provide various infrastructure such as a school, clinic, police post and tarred roads.
He also assured them that the new settlement would be equipped with electricity, water, telecommunication services as well as modern sewage, drainage and waste management.
Siambun however said Pairin should have brought these development projects to the people there during the 13 years when he held posts in the state administration.
“There was no formal invitation or information by Pairin either to me, in my capacity as the state assemblyman representing Moyog, or to Darell Leiking, in his capacity as the MP for Penampang, to attend the dialogue,” Siambun said in a statement today.
“What is it that Pairin is so afraid of to the extent that he didn’t want the elected representatives to attend the dialogue? Is there anything that Pairin wants to hide from us?”
He also accused Pairin of unduly claiming credit for ending Sabah’s west coast “water crisis” with the construction of the Babagon Dam in the early 1990s when he was chief minister.
Siambun said the dam was built at the expense of the Babagon Kadazan-Dusun villagers, who had to be relocated and who were now having a difficult life in Tampasak.
“One great sacrifice was made by the Moyog area for Pairin, a failed leader who does not command respect any more from other Kadazan-Dusun-Murut leaders. Another sacrifice would amount to total stupidity.”
Siambun said it was the state government’s responsibility to bring development to rural areas and to indigenous communities living on native customary rights (NCR) land.
“It was this indigenous Kadazan-Dusun community at Terian/Buayan who opened the land here long ago, before the existence of Pairin.
“And for Pairin to move this community away from the land worked upon by their ancestors by promising ‘an orderly yet small and restricted livelihood’, the same way the Red Indians in America were resettled at the expense of their great traditions, is nauseating.”
Sabah govt promises land, new homes for Kaiduan Dam villagers
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/04/16/resettled-natives-now-face-eviction/