Josib Kawin
KUCHING: Several families from Kampung Rejoi, who are dissatisfied with the Bengoh Dam compensation package, have set up a new settlement away from the village.
Rejoi’s village security and development committee (JKKK) deputy secretary Josib Kawin said there was nothing much that could be done to stop them because it was their personal decision to move there.
“They are not happy with what they are getting, so they decided to stay put and build a new settlement,” he said in an interview yesterday.
According to him, some 16 families are believed to be staying at the new settlement located on a hill not too far away from the original village.
Because of this, he hoped that the government and the developers of the Bengoh Dam would consider giving more compensation money, especially when most of them did not get a good deal.
“People like myself, for example, do not have big acreage of land because our land was gazetted as state land. So we were only compensated for the land surrounding our houses. We hope we will be compensated for our houses so that we can invest in our ASB (Amanah Saham Bumiputera) and other trust funds for our savings for the future,” he said.
To a question, he said many of them were still in the dark on when they would finally move to the settlement area designated for them at the Semadang-Skio road.
“In fact, we are fed up. Some said we are to move next year, some said we are to move in 2015. It is as if the matter is being kicked here and there,” he said.
A NEW SETTLEMENT IS BORN: An aerial photo of the new settlement put up by dissatisfied Rejoi villagers. — Photo courtesy of Josib Kawin
On another matter, he said the folks of Rejoi were feeling slighted by a false claim that the village would not be flooded upon the impoundment of the Bengoh Dam.
The village folks, especially those educated ones and working outside, had spotted such claim in a news report carried recently in a national tabloid, he revealed.
According to the tabloid, an unnamed source was quoted as saying the exhumation of graves at Rejoi and Kampung Pain Bojong to the resettlement scheme was put on hold because these villages would not be flooded upon impoundment.
“This is absolutely not true. Both the villages of Rejoi and Pain Bojong are going to be flooded and we as the residents are going to be resettled with heavy hearts. So we are hurt by such false claims,” Josib said.
The work to transfer the graves at Semban, also affected by the dam, commenced on Dec 1 while similar work at another village Kampung Taba Sait will start on Dec 12.
This would involve the villagers walking with the remains for up to five hours or more all the way to Kampung Bengoh before proceeding with the reburial works at the resettlement scheme at Semadang.
According to Josib, the affected families in Rejoi and Pain Bojong do not even know when the graves of their beloved ones will be exhumed and transferred. He also said the folks in Rejoi and Pain Bojong have yet to receive compensation for the graves unlike the other villages.
“I have rung up the Museum Department but I was told there was no allocation yet for Rejoi and Pain Bojong. But if you were to ask for my opinion, I would say that logically, the compensation should have been paid to the four villages at the same time so as to reflect equality and fairness,” he said.
He also opined that transferring the graves should have started at Rejoi first and not at the other villages.
“This is because Rejoi is the furthest village from Bengoh,” he said.