PBS-Warisan tit-for-tat after Shafie's land title blitz
Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Warisan are now engaged in a war of words over Sabah Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal's ongoing roadshow which saw him presenting land titles for natives.
PBS secretary-general and Tamparuli state assemblyperson Jahid Jahim got the ball rolling by accusing Shafie of taking credit for BN's work.
Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Warisan are now engaged in a war of words over Sabah Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal's ongoing roadshow which saw him presenting land titles for natives.
PBS secretary-general and Tamparuli state assemblyperson Jahid Jahim got the ball rolling by accusing Shafie of taking credit for BN's work.
He claimed that former chief minister Musa Aman was the one who sped up the land surveying process through the Perkhidmatan Tanah Pribumi Negeri Sabah (Pantas) in the past.
According to Jahid, the then BN federal government had contributed RM20 million to fund the surveying cost, and this was thanks to the work of PBS president Maximum Johnity Ongkili.
The right approach, said Jahid, was for the respective district officers to present the land titles instead of the chief minister, who used the presentation ceremonies to deliver political speeches.
Before the 2018 elections, Musa announced that the Pantas programme had led to 21,378 land titles being issued since 2011.
The land titles were used to recognise native rights to ancestral land and can only be traded among Sabah's bumiputera community.
In response, Warisan's Kalabakan division head and Kalabakan MP Ma'mun Sulaiman (photo) accused Jahid of ignoring the fact that the land titles being issued by Shafie were meant to reverse attempts to gazette native land as forest reserves.
Sabah has many types of forest reserves, and any class other than Class 1 is not fully protected. Class 2 forest reserves are allowed to be used for timber extraction.
"Now, they are questioning the sincerity of the chief minister, who is returning the land to the rakyat. Perhaps it is because (their) cronies can no longer log the timber," he said.
Sabah's Forest (Constitution of Forest Reserves and Amendment) Enactment was amended in April which would allow those living in certain forest reserves ownership over the land.
Ma'mun also accused Jahid of "hallucinating" for claiming that such efforts began during the BN-era.
"If that is true, why do people have to wait between 30 to 40 years for their land titles? Warisan resolved it in two years," he said.
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