Indian squatter families' 60 year-old land title problem - Malaysiakini

For more than half a century 120 Indian families have been waiting for titles to the land they have been squatting on in Buntong and promises made by various heads of the state government have all come to naught so far.

In 1999, the then Mentri Besar Ramli Ngeh Talib had promised to give the squatters alternative land lots but that did not materialise .

Again in 2008, his successor former Mentri Besar Mohamad Tajol Rosli Ghazali promised the squatters another piece of land as the plots pledged to them had been switched to the Gamuda double-track railway project.

When Pakatan Rakyat took over the state government in March last year, Mentri Besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin (right) had tried to solve their problem when they approached him in August but his government collapsed the following month.

These families are the third generation of the council's former employees given permission to build their own homes on the vacant land upon their retirement.

The land lies behind the council's labour-lines they had been living in before their retirement and the village that had sprung up there since is named Rumah Papan DBI.

White knight to the rescue

Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) deputy secretary general Mohana Rani Rasiah has taken up their cause and the village committee has sent a memorandum to current Mentri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir urging him to solve this long standing land title problem.

The memorandum was received by Zambry's personal secretary who promised to look into the matter within two weeks.

"Zambry had been quoted in the media on Aug 20, stating that land titles will be given to squatters who hadresided on government land for more than 10 years. So we hope that Zambry can solve this 60 year- old problem," said Rani.

The council had intended to develop this slum area in the 1990's without allocating an alternative site to their former employees and had send inbulldozers to demolish the former council's vacant labour-lines, he said.

Fearing that the council may encroach into their village which lies just next to the labour lines, the villagers won a court order in 1998, to stop the demolition, he added

Damper on development

The court order stops the destruction of the houses until their asbestos roofs - considered a health hazard - are removed without endangering the villagers' lives.This court order has put a damper to the council's plans to redevelop the area .

According to Rani, in 2006 the council and the villagers reached an agreement villagers, whereby the former would appoint its own developer for joint development to be undertaken.

The agreement also included a clause that all squatter land issues had to be addressed first.

In May 2007, the developer agreed to build RM16,000 houses for sale to the villagers.

However, when there was a change in city mayor, new office bearer cancelled the agreement as well as reneged on the promise to allocate housing lots to the villagers.

Instead, the council planned to allow Mydin Hypermarket develop the whole area, Rani claimed.

But a spanner in the works in form of the Pakatan Rakyat taking control of the state in the last elections put paid to that and the hypermarket plan was put on hold.

Now, with the BN in charge, the price of the promised squatter houses has risen from RM16,000 to RM80,000 a unit with a discount of RM15,000 for those who had rejected the offer for they just could not afford pay such a high price for them.

After waiting for 60 years, the villagers are prepared to be patient for another two weeks in the hope of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at long last.