Amending the land code was not one of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's priorities when he became prime minister a year ago.

Yet, we have recently seen efforts to amend the Malay Reserve Enactment. The amendment will allow owners of Malay reserve land to lease their plots for development by non-Malays for up to 60 years.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was quoted as saying that changes will be made to parts of the National Land Code that relate to land processing matters and administration, including the processing of land titles.

To be sure, it has long been recognised that there is a need for an overhaul of the laws governing economic dealings between Malays and non-Malays if the commercial potential of Malay reserve land is to be realised.

While there are allowances for limited leases of Malay reserve land to non-Malays, these have been insufficient to facilitate development. Moreover, Malay entrepreneurs face difficulty in raising funds to finance their business ventures.

Banks are reluctant to accept Malay reserve land as collateral because of the limited market for such land, which consequently means that they will fetch low prices.

Though some Malay reserve land in urban areas are prime real estate, they remain idle and neglected because they are off-limits to non-Malay participation.

Raised eyebrows

The Malay reserve land issue has not made major headlines in the English press, but it has raised some eyebrows in Malay ones. And with his characteristic bluntness, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has also waded into the issue.

To be sure, Mahathir has been critical of the Malay community, which still needs protection and special rights symbolised by the Malay reserve land.

"As a Malay I feel ashamed to have land reserved for me (the Malays)," he said, drawing a parallel between the lot of poor Malays and the native Americans of the United States who lived on similarly demarcated land.

He noted that having Malay reserves had once been equated with being the owners of the country. Yet, according to Mahathir, Malays in Kampung Baru in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, for instance, were practically living in tin-roofed houses on millions of ringgit worth of real estate adjacent to the Petronas Twin Towers. It was a pity, he said, that they do not want to see it developed for much bigger returns.

Underlying the 'reluctance' to unlock the value of the land, however, is not mere cultural resistance. In this case, Mahathir was only half-right. This is because most Malay reserve lands have multiple ownerships. Invariably, this has made it difficult for land to be developed.

Moreover, Kampung Baru is not 'technically speaking' a Malay reserve land. This is because, clarified the deputy prime minister, the place is not administered under the Malay Reserve Enactment.

Rather, Kampung Baru was gazetted under the 1897 Land Enactment as a "Malay Agricultural Settlement" by the colonial administration. So Kampung Baru has to be re-gazetted before its value can be realised.

More important, it is only lately that the proposed amendment to allow minority landowners to apply for sub-division makes it possible for development to be still carried out on their portion when no agreement can be reached among all the owners.

Still, it is clear that the federal government would like to use Kampung Baru as an example. Land is a state matter. And unless the federal government provides the lead, it is difficult to expect the states to follow in easing legal restrictions.

'Lost' lands

So far, the one person in Umno who is at the center of this initiative is Federal Territories Minister, Isa Abdul Samad. The former mentri besar of Negeri Sembilan received the highest number of votes during his successful bid to be one of the three vice-presidents in Umno, albeit under charges of engaging in 'money politics'.

Aware of the sensitivity of his mission, and the benefits that will accrue from it, Isa has expressed his willingness to meet landowners of Kampung Baru on its redevelopment plans.

However, contrary to what Mahathir may believe, legal restrictions are not necessarily the impediments that are hampering the growth of a Malay entrepreneurial class to use their Malay reserve lands more effectively.

If anything, with or without legal restrictions, there have been cases of various forms of abuses of the Malay reserve land, although done on the sly.

Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman, for instance, has admitted that the Johor government is tracing Malay reserve land that had been leased out by their owners for various uses following amendments to the National Land Code. However, some of the land especially those located on islands in Johor had been leased out without the government's knowledge.

The complicity surrounding Malay reserve land may even be more severe than is otherwise assumed. According to one account, at the founding of Malaya in 1957, there were three million hectares of Malay Reserve Land. Yet, that figure has almost been halved to 1.7 million hectares. Writing in the New Straits Times , Salleh Buang, affirmed that a "local daily had quoted a higher figure, and there has been no way of verifying which is accurate."

A national issue

But the Federal Constitution actually requires the state authorities to replace every acre of Malay reserve lands taken away through compulsory land acquisition. But on most cases, due to the lack of state-wide surveillance and diligence, Malay reserve lands have not been replenished.

In Selangor (Malaysia's most developed State), 9,000 hectares were "lost" through compulsory acquisitions under the Land Acquisition Act 1960. But according to Salleh Buang, only about one-third of the 9,000 hectares have been replaced. Similar practices can be documented in other states.

For what it is worth, there is much resistance in Umno to make Malay reserve land a national issue. This is because if there was a nation-wide official investigation, coupled with a sustained press campaign in both the Malay and English press to account for these `lost` Malay reserve lands, many officials and business people who have fraudulently misused them would be brought to book.

This explains why during the triennial Umno elections in September 2004, there was hardly any mention of Malay reserve lands, other than the pietistic proclamation that Malay reserve lands must be protected. The irony is: How could the state or federal government protect something that cannot be traced ?

If the Malay reserve lands issue can serve as a lesson in anything, it is this: Malays could no more have their reserve lands be protected perpetually any more can the Federal and State government protect other privileges permanently. All political systems have spillage, flaws, and structural weaknesses. This is why democratic mechanisms and processes are needed at every level of government to ensure fair representation of the facts.