Thursday, April 17, 2008

Spotlight on land transfers in Perak - The Star

IPOH: April 17, 2008

The Perak government will stop the transfer of land titles to political parties if there had been any irregularities in the initial approval.

Mentri Besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin said if the state received reports of landowners being forced to make way for political parties, the state would not hesitate to stop the title transfers.

“We want to return the rights to those who had been victimised,” he said after chairing the state exco meeting here yesterday.

Nizar said the state had received one report involving a soya sauce factory operating on a 0.93ha plot of land in Pasir Pinji here.

He said the factory, which had operated there since 1953, was forced to give way to a non-Pakatan Rakyat component party.

“The title transfer to the political party had been approved by the previous administration. But since the title transfer has not yet been prepared, we can reverse this approval,” he said.

As such, Nizar said, the state exco had unanimously agreed to disallow the title transfer to the party, which is believed to have development plans for the land.

On the village heads issue, Nizar said that it was clear the Federal Government had showed no respect for the principles of democracy.

Rural and Regional Development Minister Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib was quoted as saying recently that the resigned heads would be absorbed into a new committee under the ministry, and would report to the Federal Government.

“The state government will continue with its intention for elections for village heads from May 1, and those elected will work under the terms of reference stipulated for the development and security committees,” said Nizar.

On the Federal Government's stated intention to continue to give the former village heads their RM400 monthly allowance while the state-elected village heads would not be eligible to receive the funds, Nizar said: “As far as the state is concerned, we will give the newly elected heads their RM200 monthly allowance and no more.”

1 comment:

ch said...

Dear All,

It was the right thing for the present regime to witdraw the offer letter extended to the political party as the approval for the land may later be abused for personal gains and extension of hidden agendas by the party or its representative(s). The piece of land with the soy sauce factory, if am not mistaken, was near to a recreational park in Pasir Pinji.

The action undertaken by the Rural Government Minister, does implicate that they are a little less sensitive to the present Perak government.