Sabah’s Land and Survey Office has sent notices to 369 landowners, informing them that their property will be compulsory acquired to make way for the construction of a portion of the Pan Borneo Highway from Putatan to Inanam, reported the Daily Express.
This section is a new route that runs through many native titled lands through areas like Babah, Hubah, Tanaki, Kolopis, Kionggu, Nampasan and Kampungs Mahandoi. The other portions of the highway are occupied by existing roads that will be upgraded to dual lane carriageways.
The notices issued on 22 March requested landowners to attend a meeting with the Land and Survey Office on Tuesday (27 March). But only 33 percent of the landowners turned up, as the employees of the Lands Office only had two days to distribute the letters before the session. Nevertheless, the agency promised to send the remaining notices and said owners can visit the land office to get their letters.
However, some landowners are displeased with the notice as paragraph 10 states that their land are now owned by government. This is because it says that the date for securing vacant possession of the land is one month since the Gazette Notification’s first publication on 25 January 2018.
But landowners insisted that most of them have no knowledge of the Gazette Notification. In fact, they only knew about the compulsory land acquisition during the meeting, wherein they were informed by the Lands officer to file claims for their land within one month upon receipt of the notice.
Otherwise, no appeal on the claims will be considered except via the courts as the Pan Borneo Highway is an important project that is being fast-tracked. Moreover, the term used in the notice is reparation (pampasan) instead of compensation (gantirugi).
According to a landowner, he learned about the gazette in early-February and visited the land office. However, plans for this portion of the highway was not yet available back then. Furthermore, many landowners feel pressured in submitting their claims given the one-month deadline.
Sabah’s Land and Survey Office added that another meeting will be conducted in the future to facilitate the land acquisition process.
Image sourced from Pan Borneo
This article was edited by the editorial team of PropertyGuru. To contact them about this or other stories email editorialteam@propertyguru.com.my
For the latest property news, trends, resources and expert opinions, visit our Property News section. Home buyers, sellers or property renters looking for Malaysian Properties, may like to visit the New Launches or Project Reviews page.
