In a move to stop the sales of NT lands that is still under Land Application status, an amendment to the Sabah Land Ordinance was passed on 19 November 2009 that will enable the State Government to issue a communal native title for any State land.
With this amendment, it would not be easy for the natives to sell the land given to them by the Government unless the land is subdivided, which must first have approval from the Land Revenue Collector as provided for under Section 77 of the Land Ordinance (Cap 68). Besides that, it would also expedite the process of awarding land to natives.
Kota Kinabalu: An amendment to the Sabah Land Ordinance was passed Thursday that will enable the State Government to issue a communal native title for any State land.
Currently, this can only be done for land with proven customary tenure or under native customary rights.
Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Nasrun Mansur, in tabling the Land Ordinance (Amendment) 2009 Bill, said the amendment was also aimed at stopping activities to sell native land, which is still under Land Application status or abuse of the power of attorney letter in land transactions.
He said that under Section 76 of the Ordinance, the Minister was empowered to issue the communal native title for land that has its customary tenure proven as well as for native customary rights land.
But, this provision could not be implemented effectively because it takes a long time and is difficult to determine the native customary rights, apart from the limited logistics and manpower at the Land and Survey Department.
Nasrun said the State Government often faced problems concerning land applications by natives as well as those that had already been given to the natives.
"It has been found that the natives of Sabah tend to sell land, which is only a land application status, or by using the power of attorney letter in a transaction involving more than one buyer," he said.
Such problems usually resulted in serious dispute by those involved that would finally lead them to court and in the end drag the State Government as well, he said.
"Such cases have caused problem and losses to the State Government be it in the form of wastage of manpower, time or cost," he said.
With the amendment, Nasrun said it would not be easy for the natives to sell the land given to them by the Government unless the land is subdivided, which must first have approval from the Land Revenue Collector as provided for under Section 77 of the Land Ordinance (Cap 68).
Besides that, he said it would also expedite the process of awarding land to natives such as through the fast track land ownership pioneer project programmes planned by the Land and Survey Department at Nabawan.
Meanwhile, he said the State Government was also addressing the problem of delays in processing the registration of land memorandum, especially with land transaction deals received by the Land and Survey Department increasing at an average of 22,000 yearly.
In this respect, he said Section 97(2) was being amended to allow the Land and Survey Department Checker to attest to the land transaction memorandum for registration and authenticity verification.
Nasrun said currently attestation of the memorandum was being done by the Collector but due to their limited number coupled with the heavy duty entrusted to them, the job was practically being done by the Checker.
"But, due to the provision in subsection two that requires the signature of the Collector, the memorandum is still being submitted to the Collector (even though it had been checked and signed by the Checker)," he said.
Nasrun said in order to expedite the land transaction process the subsection two would be deleted so that the process no longer needs to wait for the Collector.
He assured that the move would not in any way affect the validity of the memorandum because currently the work was virtually being done by the Checker.
In order to be more effective, he said the State Government had also formulated strategies to improve the delivery system at the Land and Survey Department by proposing the setting up of the electronic land transaction system known as e-Pendaftaran.
The system expected to be commissioned by next year, he said, would further smoothen land transaction deals and save time, cost and energy.
The State Legislative Assembly on Thursday also passed the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Ordinance 2009 to allow land acquisition for projects involving public utility or any public purpose.
Tabling the Bill, Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister, Datuk Radin Malleh, said the State Government was facing problems acquiring land for development programmes due to the ambiguity in the ordinance.
For example, he said the land acquisition cases involving SESB, POIC and others.
He said the State Government had to find a solution to ensure that bodies such as SESB, Petronas and KKIP, among others, would be able to carry out development, especially under the Ninth and 10th Malaysia Plans.
The definition of "public purpose" in the Ordinance had never been amended in the past 45 years although during that time so many changes had happened such as the privatisation of the Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd.
"Changes such as this have been hindering the process of land acquisition for development in the State," he said.
Another amendment was to provide for the date of the value of land acquired to be the date of the second publication in the Gazette of the declaration (under Section 3) or of the direction (under Section 5), whichever is earlier.
Published in the
Daily Express on Friday, November 20, 2009.
