Govts that just make trouble for tomorrow

Land today, problems for the future - let's stop creating legacy issues

COMMENT

by Hafidz Baharom

The development of housing in Malaysia has been burdened by grants of land in the past for settlement, creating legacy issues that are somehow passed on to developers.

In Kampung Chubadak, Kuala Lumpur, settlers of the supposedly Malay reserve land found it had been sold to a company in 1985 right from under their feet. The situation exploded just last year and is now in court, after people have been living there for half a century.

Three years ago, the same situation was faced by the fishermen of Pangerang who had to make way for the Pangerang Integrated Petroleum Complex.

In Penang, a developer is facing the same issues with a fisherman’s village in Jelutong making way for a development approved by the previous state government in exchange for building an expressway.

We might even add in the development of Datum Jelatek, in Kuala Lumpur’s Keramat area, to this list, perhaps.

Time and time again such issues crop up because of careless handling by local government authorities. How on earth can you sell off land that has been populated and built on by hundreds, if not thousands, of Malaysians and leave the matter for developers to handle?

I would not be surprised if such will be the case with such places as Kampung Sungai Penchala, in Petaling Jaya. How much longer before it is swallowed up to become yet another Damansara housing estate?

The encroachment of development on land once used as temporary settlements for the poor will continue with the further growth of Kuala Lumpur and the Greater Klang Valley.

What are the guidelines for resettlement offers, and do they require reform?

Lack of action and notification by local governments, and their lack of respect for everyday Malaysians, has create such explosive environments.

A similar issue is brewing in the Cameron Highlands as well. On December 30, Cameron Highlands experienced a landslide that killed two people. It subsequently unfolded that illegal farming had been the cause, land opened up by migrant workers.

The government and its agencies announced that they would investigate and take stern action. That was it. Now, two months later, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is suddenly asking people to snitch.

Worse, deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced on January 27 that those who illegally cleared land for farming, the same ones earlier blamed for causing a disaster that killed two people and perhaps even causing the so-called influx of illegal migrant workers, will be granted temporary operating licenses (TOLs).

Not only did the government find nobody to blame for negligently causing the deaths of two people, it is now even rewarding them by allowing them to continue farming 2,260 hectares of illegally cleared land.

How could the federal and Pahang governments do such a thing?

Apparently, these illegal farmers have been operating for the past 40 years. Four decades. Two scores of years, and no action. It is not exactly a matter of asking the authorities to go and find Jim Thompson.

One would have thought there would have been clues while they were operating there for 40 years: the absence of licenses, missing payments on land taxes, or even that there was enough erosion to cause landslides.

But here’s a more important question: how do you get the land back after issuing TOLs? Will we face the same situation as in Pangerang, Kampung Chubadak and even Jelatek?

We are creating a culture of whimsical and bad practices in governance, where businesses bear the brunt of tarnished images for wanting access to develop their land, while at the same time those who may have triggered a catastrophic natural disaster and may yet trigger more are being let off the hook “based on certain reasons”, in the words of the deputy prime minister.

The government must simply stop planting the seeds of legacy issues.

Transparent and good governance at all levels, inquiries, audits and even legislative reviews need to be done. There must be as much transparency as possible, either when land is sold to private companies, or when illegal farmers are allowed to be in business over four decades without any action ever taken – until lives are lost or ruined.

Otherwise, we will be stuck on a roundabout of issues that will taint, and create resentment of businesses and governments at all levels, driving away investors, and stymieing our prospects of better and uninterrupted economic growth.

Hafidz Baharom is an FMT reader.