Sarawak pioneers formula to develop Native lands

Sarawak, through Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority or SALCRA is the first one to produce a sophisticated formula for the development of Native customary Rights land for the benefits of the owners.

 

Throughout the world whether in North America, all the Pacific Islands and other places where Customary Rights serve as the basis for early settlements, no solutions have been devised to make the Natives benefit from the development of their land.

What has been achieved by SALCRA is much more than just giving. For example, for 2010, SALCRA has given out bonuses totaling about RM 400 million.  More importantly, SALCRA has found a solution to help the people, who have been ignorant, helpless and unable to use of market mechanism and modern business strategies to develop their lands.

The State’s target is to develop 2 million hectares NCR land to enable most of the people who have been dependent on these lands can have a pension scheme. Probably their children, who may not want to go back to land like in the old days, will have a choice, either to hold shares or work in the estates, something that will give them better returns.

This is what SALCRA, now a successful business organization, has been doing for nearly 20,000 participants of its estates with a total acreage of more than 50,000 hectares.

This is one of the most complicated business organization that can ever be built. A lot of people will give up because there will be quarrels, misunderstandings and opposition to whatever it wants to do for the landowners.  For example, the people outside the government and members NGOs will always take opportunities to instigate the land owners not to participate in any development that can make their land into real economic assets.

It is in this context, that the opposition and foreign NGOs, which do not have any tract record of service to the people can be regarded are plain hypocrites. They have not really fought for ways of giving good returns and benefits to Native owners of pre-colonial land rights in any parts of the world.

Understandably, SALCRA started with lots of problems.  The State Government under the leadership of Pehin Sri Haji Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, since March 26, 1981 started to think seriously how to make a success of SALCRA schemes. The schemes must be made successful as there was no other way to help the people who were living in hardship and spreading in small groups over a wide area in the rural areas. Ways have to be found to help in the development of Native Customary Right land as a way to start a difficult struggle, which if successful, could change the attitude of Bumiputras on how they can benefit from the development of their large tracts of land.

The Natives among themselves can accumulate about two million hectares of land through the traditional process, inherited from their ancestors, of opening up new areas. Logically, they should be accorded the rights to keep the lands to enable them to get good values from them. There is already a vast tract of Native Customary Right land over the land surface of the State but the owners do not get much benefit from them.

Quite obviously, they do not have the capability to convert the lands to become assets.   There is a difference between land and asset in the case of Sarawak. In the case of other countries land and asset mean the same things. It can give you income. But in Sarawak there is a big gap in the value between land owned by Bumiputra and lands owned by non Bumiputras. This is because they do not have certainty of sizes; most of the lands do not have titles.

Those with titles, on the other hand, tend to go into the market and get sold at cheap prices because of economic pressure on life. This practice, if allowed to continue unchecked, may make Native land owners poorer in having assets. The State Government must have the resolve, determination and political will to tackle the problems of NCR lands even though they were full of traps and difficulties. There was no other way to help Bumiputras who have lands in rural areas except to use the lands that are already available to them in order to raise their value.

In the First Malaysia Plan, which introduced New Economic Policy as the main thrust to eradicate poverty among the people, the Natives in Sarawak could not be included within the purview of the policy.   In Semenanjung Malaysia, poverty was being interpreted to mean estate dwellers, residents of New Villages and people who did not have land. As a consequence, the interpretation of poverty in the New Economic Policy under the First Malaysia Plan did not include the Natives in Sarawak as they could not be included as people who did not have lands.

Then the State could not argue about their position as the Federal authority was not knowledgeable about the form of land holdings or land system in Sarawak. The problem was made more complicated as the people could not develop their land due to the internal security problems posed by insurgence of armed members of the Communists Organisation operating in Sibu, Sarikei and Kapit divisions. An emergency was declared in the region and administered under Rajang Security Command to tackle the security problem.

The success of SALCRA today should be credited to Datuk Patinggi Alfred Jabu due to his wide experience and deep understanding of the feeling and attitude of the Dayaks towards their customary right lands.   Secondly, Datuk Patinggi Jabu has expert knowledge about agriculture for example rubber, palm oil and other crops.  He is very details in his approach to any problems.  It is not surprising, therefore, that SALCRA, as can be seen now, has grown up to become a corporate organization, a money making organization. 

More importantly, it has been able to build a new attitude among Bumiputra towards the prospects of developing their Native Customary Right lands or NCR lands. This is the most difficult problem to solve. Equally important, the success of estates being developed by SALCRA helps to induce a lot of our qualified people to go back to Ulu areas and to help the local people.   Obviously, SALCRA has become a mechanism to can create jobs for the clever people to come back and help their own people.

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says SALCRA had already started doing a good job since 1981 but its schemes did not have the economy of scale. For example, there were many people being engaged to open up a small tract of land only. Hence, the priority was to build the economy of scale for SALCRA. In the period of 1982 – 1983, though the State did not have much money, the Government decided whatever cash that could be accumulated by managing the country well, must be used by SALCRA first. Very few people knew about this. In other words any surplus money could be used to make SALCRA a bigger operation with an economy of scale. From thence onward, the State Government had a view that SALCRA should play a bigger role than what it used to do in developing Lemanak and Skuau land schemes.

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says in 1965 he was involved in opposing the move to amend the Land Code to allow Native land to be developed without any provisions to safeguard the rights of owners over their lands. For that reason, SALCRA must be strengthened to enable it to play a more significant role in the development of Native lands. Appropriate steps have to be taken to reorganize SALCRA and inject it with more money; the whole organization had to be revamped. Besides, the government also decided that SALCRA should concentrate on its estates in First and Second divisions in order to be more focused and efficient in their development. It could risk experiencing logistical problems if it were allowed to spread over a wide area of operation.

Pehin Sri Abdul Taib is convinced that Datuk Patinggi Alfred Jabu cares for his people, the Dayak community in particular. For example, he entrusted Datuk Patinggi Alfred Jabu to save Batang Ai, which was in danger of being closed down after one Japanese engineer was killed. He made tireless visits to the ground to meet and talk to people while opposition politicians ran away without trying to solve the problem. The crisis in Batang Ai land scheme was very typical of the opposition. They would just open their mouth and once the problems crop up, they quickly run away.

However, the success of SALCRA is not complete solution yet. While people who own more than 10 acres of land can benefit and have the patience to participate in Native Estates being developed by SALCRA, those who own below 10 acres may not be able to do so.  For example, those with less than five acres also want their land to give them something that will benefit them immediately.

Generally, people, each with five acres or below, do not get many dividends from their lands. They may not be satisfied with their income. They are prone to instigation by the opposition not to join estates being developed either by SALCRA or Pelita, which they  allege as instrument by the government to grab Native lands. Of course, there is no truth in the allegation but the people who experience hardship, will be quick to believe something that can suppress further their livelihood.

Therefore conscientious efforts must be made to formulate a new scheme to help the people to develop their land.  For example, a more flexible system must be formulated to help the participants, once they become too old to work on their lands, to have some income.   As they become too old to work, they have to depend on their small dividends to support their livelihood.

Perhaps, the State government should consider, instead of giving welfare fund, to use the money to buy shares as way to increase their assets. Once they can have more shares in the estates they should be able to get more monthly income to support their livelihood. Understandably, the State government will be discussing with the Federal Government under the 10^th Malaysia Plan to give loan and that half of it can be used to buy shares to be allocated to the poor participants of any estates.

Understandably also, the State government will be implementing a land exchange in the next two years for land owners, who do not want to develop their lands any more, to sell their shares to the exchange.  However, the shares cannot be bought by non Bumiputras as it remains illegal for non-Bumiputras to take over the NCR rights in any joint- venture company. The only way to restrict that kind of practice is to create land exchange that can transact shares in any successful estates.  The new generation will have two choices, firstly to work in the modern agricultural sector or keep their shares in Native Estate Development schemes that can give them dividends every year.  In other words, they can choose either to keep their money in Trust Fund or shares in land development companies.

The State government, with the allocation of RM21 million from the Federal government, will  commence work to survey Native Customary Right lands that are connected to with each other, very soon.  However, the survey cannot cover individual titles. Otherwise, the money will be insufficient as it will take another 30 years to solve the problems.  However, if they agree among them, the government is prepared to consider making the perimeter survey and return the land to the people that have basis for joint ownership according to proportions of land owned by them.

The land and survey department has already identified lands that will be surveyed.  Hopefully, with steps to be taken to make a perimeter survey of NCR lands and agreement among owners, the State government should be able to launch more estates to involve them in modern estates development, which emphasizes on the usage of modern management and having access to capital and bank money. It is an efficient way to involve more owners of NCR land in modern land development. Besides, the new development will also give opportunities to non Bumiputras to participate legally in such development. And that is the most important thing for us to do.  It will create a sense of partnership and not a sense of isolation in the new development. 

Undeniably, the State has found a solution to develop NCR land. But it requires all enlightened people among Bumiputras to be willing to come forward to explain its objectives to land owners. The way of LCDA now takes between two to three years to implement a project; it is a bit slow. The State Government is of the view that it should not restrict the development of NCR land to LCDA only. The organizations like SALCRA, FELDA, if it is allowed to come in to Sarawak, FELCRA should be encouraged to form joint ventures with NCR land owners to develop their lands. The land should not remain idle as idle land that does not give any benefit to anybody. It is a waste that has to tackle.

The people must fight with greater determination attempts by foreign NGOs or even unfriendly NGOs to oppose efforts to develop NCR lands mainly for their own political consideration. They have been resorting to spread false propaganda or outright lies to instigate the Native land owners to oppose any proposals to develop their lands. The Government must have the political will to do what need to be convince more Bumiputras to develop their lands in the era of modern business and accessibility to bank loans and other capitals. 

Undoubtedly, it is an efficient way to ensure that Native land owners do not get trapped in having a lot lands that do not command good value.     Generally native lands, which used to be valued at RM200 or RM300 per acre before the inception of SALCRA and LCDA, now can command the same value as any land that is being developed for estates by investors. 

benuasains

*Photos Source: http://www.salcra.gov.my/

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