WE RELEASE THE LAND GRAB DATA!
Sarawak Report
Sarawak Report has made the decision to release the full database of the Land Survey Department’s recent transactions on rural lands. For some weeks we have been researching the confidential data, only to discover of the more than one thousand plots of rural land that have been acquired by the state, the vast bulk have been handed on to close relatives and cronies of Taib Mahmud.
This is a national scandal and deserves full exposure. So, we now invite readers and the press to scrutinise the land register for themselves and to identify what lands have been taken in their own areas – and by whom. It is time that Taib stopped hiding behind the laughable excuse that “there is no proof”!
You are also invited to take part in our inter-active mapping project, whereby readers can pinpoint land grabs that are relevant or known to them and add them to our on-line annotated map of Sarawak.
Don’t worry it is easy! We have started it for you by marking out some of the land grabs that we have featured in earlier reports. You just plot the red blob and add the information. Shortly after your contribution will be added to the on-line information base for the benefit of fellow readers.
We have decided to embark on this project, because the information that we are presenting ought to be openly available in any democratic state. Instead, for the past 30 years Taib Mahmud has presided over a scandalous abuse of his people’s trust, by covertly stealing their lands for himself! Don’t say there is no proof, just look at the companies in the database and then find out who they belong to, or used to belong to at the time the land title was awarded. Often these companies have been quickly sold for much more that the premium the State required in order to cash in the true value of the concession. This means money that should have gone to the State and the people went to the Taibs and their cronies instead.
Any procedure involving the alienation of state or NCR lands to private parties, which has happened on a massive scale under Taib, should of course be an open process, so that everyone can see that there has been no corruption and that the best price has been gained for the people of Sarawak. However, Taib has done no such thing. As soon as he achieved the position of Chief Minister he moved swiftly to set up what he termed the Land Custody and Development Agency (Pelita) and put himself in charge of it as Chairman and as the Minister of Resources and Planning.
