KOTA KINABALU: Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM)Tawau Division chief, Datuk Nizam Datuk Abu Bakar Titingan took to task Warisan youth chief and Sepanggar MP, Azis Jamman for making a misleading statement that over 2,000 hectares of state land have been handed to federal agencies in Sabah.
Nizam, who is also State Assistant Finance Minister, said Azis intentionally and knowingly attempted to politicise the issue to mislead the people that the state government has given away a vast area of land to the federal agencies.
Azis knew very well that most of the land titles handed to the federal agencies on 18 February 2021 have already been developed with existing public facilities like schools, hospitals, clinics and police stations but instead he chose to twist the facts.
On Azis’s contention the previous Warisan-led government has awarded villagers with native land titles of more than 10,000 acres of land to rural folk from 2019 to 2020, Nizam said this is akin to ‘Lembu punya susu, sapi punya nama.”
It was a fact that those land issued were surveyed and approved by the then BN-led government and Azis knew very well that the time taken to process these would be long, hence the titles were only ready around 2019 to 2020.
“It is shameful that Aziz and the Warisan government has repeatedly claimed credit for the more than 10,000 acres of land distributed to rural folks for this period,” he said.
Referring to the State Native Land Services Programme (PANTAS) implemented in 2011, Nizam said the program has successfully surveyed NCR lands to ensure the rights of natives to own lands they have lived on and toiled were protected.
The Federal government has allocated RM20 million to the GRS government this year to ensure more native lands can be surveyed and land titles issued to as many rural folks. Last year, the allocation was only RM7.5 million.-pr/BNN
