KUALA MENGGATAL: The Ministry of Higher Education has allocated RM6 million to cover the cost of the construction of 73 houses for the residents of Kampung Lokub near here.
The minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, said before the ground breaking ceremony for the housing project at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) yesterday that the houses would be constructed on a 30-acre site within the confines of UiTM.
According to Mohamed Khaled, the university has agreed to set aside the area of which it has no intention to develop, specifically for the resettlement of the Kampung Lokub residents.
According to him, the houses will also be constructed for the residents free of charge and once completed, the house owners will gain access to electricity and water supplies. An access road will also be provided. The completion period of the project is nine months.
The total built-up area of each house will be 650 square feet while the land area will be 2,500 square feet.
In an interview, Mohamed Khaled gave the assurance that the residents of Kampung Lokub will not be forced to shift before the houses are completed.
He also lauded UiTM, the people’s representative of the area as well as the residents themselves for working on a win-win formula to resolve the problem of the university and the villagers.
UiTM was established in Sabah in the early 1980s. It began with a single campus in Sembulan and later shifted to its permanent site at Kuala Menggatal to accommodate the increasing number of students and staff.
Presently, the university has 3,000 students and the future plan is to increase the intake to 6,000.
The re-settlement issue of the Kampung Lokub residents cropped up in 1996. However, an agreement was entered into between the university and the residents in 2008 and yesterday marked the official commencement of the resettlement project.
The agreement provided that UiTM agreed to allocate a parcel of its unused land to be developed as a resettlement of the settlers of Kampung Lokub.
Also present at the ceremony were Assistant Industrial Development Minister Datuk Jainab Ahmad Ayid, Umno Sepanggar chief Datuk Jumat Idris, UiTM vice chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar.