Villager left home after NCR land ‘taken’, RCI told

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KOTA KINABALU: Charles Magandap from Kota Marudu had no choice but to leave his home village in Matunggong because there was no more ‘land’ for him to live on.

The security officer said that their NCR (native customary right) land in Kampung Sampil gazetted under SAFODA had been ‘taken’ by a mega company.

Charles who is now squatting in Bukit Punai, the land gazetted for the High Court, said that 370 of them left the village after being told that the 60,000 hectares gazetted for SAFODA were no longer theirs.

“We left the kampung and came to the state capital to seek our fortune,” he said and when asked by Commissioner Tan Sri Herman Luping if they knew whose land they were squatting on, Charles replied, “kami tidak tahu siapa punya. Kami nampak tanah lapang jadi kami bina rumah di sana. (We do not know who owns it but when we saw the empty space, we built our houses there).

“There are about 23 houses in Bukit Punai with about 100 families who are mostly Rungus and Dusun,” he told the Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah yesterday.

He added that they had received the eviction notice from City Hall but were appealing for assistance from the elected representatives to relocate them at PPRT or PPR in the state capital.

On the issue of the land in their village, Charles said they had referred the matter to the local elected representatives but were told that they were in the dark about the land transfer as well.

“We have also appealed to the Kota Marudu member of parliament (Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili) but if nothing happens, we will have to find other land to build our homes,” he added.

Charles earlier related to the panel on the process he went through to obtain his Malaysian identity card.

According to him, in the 1960’s his village was inaccessible and the only way in or out of Kampung Sampil was on foot.

“It took 12 hours walk from my village to Kota Marudu then and that was why children born there were never registered with the National Registration Department (NRD). I did, however, apply for an identity card in 1976 when I turned 12 and waited nine years for it to be issued.

“As I did not receive any response from NRD, I only used the temporary receipt issued and my school certificates as my identification documents. When I followed up with NRD on the non-issuance of my IC, I was informed that the Statutory Declaration, which is used as a supporting document, was no longer accepted. So I had to re-apply again and this time I applied for a late registration birth certificate which I later obtained in 2003 after which I used to apply for an IC that I got in 2004,” he said.