KOTA KINABALU: Former State Secretary and Suhakam vice chairman Tan Sri Simon Sipaun has called on civil servants involved in land and forest administration to adopt a more caring attitude when dealing on land related issues with the natives.
He suggested that these civil servants should also be human rights-compliant and to observe and practiSe the golden rule of ‘Do unto others what you would like others to do unto you.’
This could be achieved through suitably designed training programmes, he said this during the symposium on ‘Sabah Native Land Rights: Issues, Challenges and Future Prospects’ held at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) yesterday.
He also called for the Land Ordinance (Cap 68) to be reviewed and amended in order to eliminate ambiguities and confusions.
“A workshop could be organised to bring together experts, complainants’ representatives and other interested parties to identify the amendments required,” he suggested.
“For example, Section 13 of the Ordinance provides for‘enquiry as to native rights.’
“The law states that upon receipt of any application for un-alienated state land, it shall be the duty of the Collector to publish a notice calling upon any claimant to native customary rights over such land who is not yet in possession of a registered documentary title to make or send in a statement of his claim within a date to be specified in the notice.
“However the law does not specify the manner how the notice should be displayed. He could place the notice in an obscure place where no one would notice it,” Sipaun said.
He also said that mulitiple land applications over the same piece of land should not be entertained.
“If the first application is rejected, the applicant should be informed of the reason for the rejection before the next application is considered.
“Section 70 (i) of the Ordinance actually provides for this but obviously have not been complied with in practice,” he stressed.
He added that Assistant Collectors of Land Revenue should not be allowed to stay in the same place longer than three years.
He also called for an independent arbitrator to be appointed to examine and make recommendations to resolve outstanding land disputes.
Additionally, an independent expert should also be engaged to identify the root causes of the problems related to land and forest and make recommendations to resolve them, he said.
Apart from that, the capability and capacity of officers and staff involved in land and forest administration and management should be upgraded on a regular basis and make them more human rights-compliant.
Sipaun also called for zero tolerance towards corruption in all the relevant departments and agencies.
“An independent committee should be appointed to look into the grouses and complaints of those whose applications for land have been rejected.
“The valuation section of the Land and Survey Department must operate as a separate entity on its own right,” he suggested.
Commenting on the rural community’s understanding of the legislations and policies associated with land and forest, Sipaun opined that their understanding could be enhanced by organising specific roadshows throughout the state.
Land and forest administration and management should be made more transparent and close consultation with the affected parties should be carried out as and when a project is planned and implemented, such as the construction of dams, gazettal of forest reserves, water catchments, wildlife conservation, Sabah Parks, settlement schemes, commercial and agricultural projects and so on, he said.
Sipaun also encouraged enforcement authorities to take immediate action against land encroachment as soon as it occurs and not to wait until much later for a settlement to be fully established and in some cases when crops such as palm oil and fruit trees are already ready for harvesting.
“In any gazettal exercise, the state government must also ensure no human habitation exists in the area to be gazetted.
In other words the exercise should be pro-active and not re-active,” he remarked.
And in the cases of land being compulsorily acquired by the government, Sipaun suggested that compensation should be paid to the affected owners without any undue delay.