JAMES (right) receives a gift presented by Fazlinah
KOTA KINABALU: A total of 47 federal land sites in Sabah have not been applied for, while 120 sites have Land Applications, while 219 sites have Registered Titles.
Sabah Community Development and People’s Well-being Minister (KPMKR), Datuk James Ratib urged the ministry and the relevant department to immediately resolve the long-delayed federal land gazetting issue in the state.
“I have met the Director General of Lands and Mineral (Federal) Department (JKPTG) Sabah, Fazlina Binti Hj Abdul Rani in my office and some of her entourage and I also called officials from the Sabah State Health Department (JKNS) and the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MoH) related to the problems of Federal Land in the state of Sabah.
“When she briefed me, I was quite satisfied. For information, this matter actually continued for a long time before she became the Director of JKPTG in Sabah, indeed there were already many problems.
“When I look at the records shown, I see that there are indeed many lands that have not yet been gazetted or given grants from the ministries,” he said after a meeting in his office on Tuesday.
James, who is also Sabah State Health Exco, said that there are several processes that complicate and hinder the publication and issuance of this grant.
“One of their problems is that all the land forms had to be sent to the federal ministry in Kuala Lumpur before being signed by the Director of JKPTG in Sabah who represents the Federal Land Commission, processed and registered in the districts.
“This will take a long time because of the process that involves sending it to the ministry at the Federal level before the process for registration and then for the process of gazetting and issuing grants,” he stressed.
James added that in the ministry’s department in the Ministry of Health alone, as many as 47 buildings of the Sabah State Health Department and the Ministry of Health have not yet been applied for and processed.
While 120 are lands that still have the status of PT (Land Application), and it is not known whether this PT status will remain until when it can be gazetted or a grant issued.
“This has taken tens of years, so I request that KKM or JKNS to appoint officers who have the caliber and understanding to manage land in these areas.
“Actually, I also sympathize with the officers of the Federal Land Commissioner stationed in Sabah because first of all, she has to manage all the federal lands in Sabah even though the number of officers is not enough.
“Sometimes, officials from certain departments do not know whether they follow the instructions or not to process the lands in their department. This is actually the problem,” he said.
What is worrying, said James, is that this matter has just touched the Federal level, and not yet at the state level, which is in the Land Department, and this is very difficult.
“Therefore, I, as the State Health Exco of Sabah, request the KKM or JKNS to speed up the registration process of KKM/JKNS lands in Sabah.
“Remember 47 have not even been applied for so far and 120 have new PT status and this is very worrying. If there is no wake-up call, this matter will never be resolved.
“We ask that this matter be acted upon immediately to please or so that things like this will not happen again like the previous health clinics.
Meanwhile, he also asked the government to add more officers to manage the federal lands in Sabah because the federal lands in Sabah are so vast, so many officers are needed to carry out their duties.
“You know that the state of Sabah is so big and has a vast area, so it definitely needs a lot of workers to manage the federal lands,” he explained again.
Also present at the meeting were Assistant Director of JKPTG, Suriani Binti Abdul Rahman, Senior Assistant Land Officer, Site Rohani Binti Hussin, Assistant Land Officer 2, Puti Sutria Binti Ariana, Assistant Land Officer 3, Syamsul Bahari Bin Mohd Nor and Chief Assistant Director of JKNS, Martini Binti Muhammad and Jessica Johannes Solidau.
