Supp wants native land registered
Malaysiakini.com
Dec 11, 2006
Tony Thien

A fairer representation of all races in the civil service was among the matters raised and agreed at the Sarawak United People's Party special delegates conference (SDC) yesterday.

The party also urged the Sarawak state government to urgently kick start the ground survey of native customary rights (NCR) land and register the estimated 1.5 million hectares of such land.

The other issues covered at the one-day closed-door conference were Chinese education matters, especially financial support for independent Chinese schools in the state and the land lease renewal controversies.

The civil service was one of the issues incorporated in the Chinese-based party's so-called Forward Plan that was tabled and debated by about 550 delegates from some 35 branches at the special meeting.

Party deputy president Law Hieng Ding told malaysiakini today that he proposed that a monitoring unit be set up for this purpose so that the distribution of posts in the civil service would reflect a better picture of the country's racial make-up.
The almost one million strong civil service is largely dominated - by almost 80 percent - by Malaysian bumiputera employees.

Risking rejection

Many delegate spoke quite emotionally on all the issues, urging the party to take more concrete steps to deal with them, or risk being labelled as an ineffective spokesman for the community in the government.

At a press conference, the party leaders, headed by party president Dr George Chan, told reporters that the present state government's policy on the renewal of land leases, especially those affecting the urban residents, was unclear and was still causing a great deal of concern among the people.

The delegates not only wanted a guarantee that the land leases would be renewed, especially those with family houses built on them, but also the leases should be extended for a 99-year-period or at the very least 60 years and at greatly reduced premium rates to make it affordable to the people.

The party leaders said if the party should fail to allay the fears and concerns of the thousands of lease-holders, the party was in danger of finding its candidates rejected by voters in the parliamentary elections.

NCR survey

On NCR land, the party said there appeared to be a perception among the rural population that the government did not recognize native customary rights and that dozens of litigation cases were now before the court for determination on NCR land disputes.

It called on the government to register NCR land estimated to be in the region of 1.5 million hectares in order to allay the fears of the natives against thinking the government was taking their NCR land away, converting them to mixed zone land, and alienating them to plantation companies.

It also urged the authorities concerned to expedite the ground survey of NCR land and to issue titles to the landowners.

Law said all the proposals tabled during the conference would be studied by a special committee and fine-tuned before forwarding the necessary recommendations to the state government.

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