KOTA KINABALU: With imminent eviction looming over their heads, residents of the squatter colony at Jalan Sharif Osman, Luyang are at wits end wondering what their future holds.
The 100-odd families staying at the squatter colony are mostly from Matunggong, Pitas and Kota Marudu, Kudat with a few from Sikuati and some districts in the southern part of Sabah.
Numbering about 300 people, including young children, some of the squatters are government servants while others work in the private sector or are self-employed.
Speaking to the media yesterday, their representatives, Shamsuddin @ Masadim Palaggong and Raffles Magadap, expressed their worries as the eviction notice they received recently stated that they have to move out within three weeks.
The men, who were originally from Matunggong, said they started living in the area in 1996 and soon saw the colony grew to what it is now. Raffles added all those staying in the colony are locals as they do not allow foreigners to live in the area.
There is no electricity supply to the colony although they have piped water with proper meters from the State Water Department which they are billed for and pay monthly, they said.
“But the water supply was disconnected almost two months ago when the department personnel came and removed the meters,” Shamsuddin said, adding that since then they have been relying on rain water and also purchasing water from nearby business premises for RM5 a bucket.
Shamsuddin and Raffles disclosed that the first eviction notice was received in June last year, prompting them to immediately write in to the local authority, the Local Government and Housing Minister, and the relevant quarters seeking a postponement of the eviction.
They also requested for government assistance to provide them with housing as they do not have houses and cannot afford to purchase one on their own capacity.
“We are law-abiding citizens who know that we are squatting on government land, but we have no choice because we have nowhere to live … we have no land in our respective home villages and cannot afford to rent houses in the city as most of us earn less than RM1,000 a month,” Raffles said.
“We sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister’s Department on July 3, 2013 but we have yet to receive any reply. We are worried because the heavy machineries for demolition are already here.
According to the two men, soon after the eviction notice was delivered in June last year, City Hall personnel have returned to visit them and asked the squatters to fill in a yellow form from LPPB.
“The City Hall personnel said we will be getting houses from LPPB and also advised us not to move out unless we get the houses. But what is disappointing is that we have yet to get any reply to the application.
“The only answer that we got from the government is that we have to move out of this area. We are not against development or the government but we just want to be treated fairly as we are poor people who cannot afford to buy a house. They promised (us housing) so we want them to fulfill the promise,” Raffles stressed.
The residents are also getting assistance from I-Link, a non-profit organization which had also written in to the Local Government and Housing Ministry about the squatters’ problem.