Keningau: Sabah North Borneo Dusun Minamasok Association (Minamasok) on Wednesday expressed its disappointment over the Land and Survey Department's failure to explain to the people on the essence of Native Customary Rights (NCR) since it was formulated in 1889.
Its President, Dimie Guntop, 68, said after 41 years and five amendments, only then the department concerned explained the actual content of the NCR.
He said many people are disappointed with it because it is confusing them.
"What has the Land and Survey Department been doing for so long," he said when reacting to the statement by the department's Director, Datuk Osman Jamal.
Jamal was quoted as saying that claims for NCR land after the Land Ordinance 1930 do not come under NCR.
To this, Guntop said there are two channels to judge two things that have relation to one another.
He said Jamal should have explained the difference between State Land and Government Land Reserve.
Referring to permanent individual ownership of government land reserve, he said this has been rampantly occurring in Sabah for the past 41 years.
It is similar with state land where in the end it would side with the department in certain cases such as Forest Management Unit (FMU) concession ownership.
Guntop said even though Minamasok agrees with the terms of Native Rights that was explained by Jamal through Section 5, 6(1) and 88 of the Sabah Land Ordinance (SLO), the explanation came too late and thus the department must be held responsible for the people's wrong interpretation of the government.
"Many have become the victims, in fact many have passed away without knowing the actual interpretation of the two laws (SLO and NCR)," he said.
He said Minamasok also disputed the seven methods of interpretation regarding NCR land, describing it as too loose.
And because of that, many natives in the interior such as in Keningau, Nabawan, Pensiangan, Tenom and Kinabatangan have been denied of their native rights without any form of defence from the existing law under the Land and Survey Department.
Citing an example, he said if an individual carries out cultivation or settles in a state land for a period of three years, the individual could apply for the land from the department to classify it as NCR land.
To this, he asked if such method is fair.
"What about the plight of people who have been residing in an area since 1889?" he asked.
Guntop said thousands of acres of land that belonged to the natives throughout Sabah including those that have been classified as NCR land have been denied by the Land and Survey Department.
On this, he urged the government to study the issue again and to place the natives as priority.
Minamasok, he said, would not keep silent over the matter or let the rights of the natives be belittled.
