Open Letter to Gan Tee Jin
Posted by: Meramat Tajak
Open Letter to Gan Tee Jin and any other socially responsible Oil Palm Plantation company in West Malaysia or elsewhere, seeking to develop NCR land WITH native owner.
Dear Gan Tee Jin,
Of course if the news appear in Malaysiakini, it tend to carry truths that the BN government often prefer to keep from the public.
Its commendable that on reading the news, you choose to find out more about the real situation in Sarawak. I hope you find the honest reaction from Dayakbaru readers useful for your corporate business planning. Allow me to add a few more personal insights.
Konsep Baru is Systematic land Grab
First,if you choose to establish your venture through Konsep Baru, you will be a party to the systematic land grab by the state against the interest of the poor Dayak natives.
The Sarawak BN state government had erected a lot of amendments to the land code since 1984; one such amendment deny the right of the NCR land owner to obtain land title to his traditional parcel,recognised within the Native Court and many had predate the formation of Malaysia itself.
LCDA steamroll NCR land acquisition
LCDA steamroll acquisition of NCR land through dubious means-mostly without an actual signature of consent from each and every legitimate owner of NCR land in the government designated gross acreage for OP.In the Julau case, you must have noted LCDA claim all 101 longhouse had agree, even when not a single individual NCR land owner has signed up to the proposed JV. More importantly, of 101 longhouses, 60 had refused to allow their NCR land to be used, and I believe Sime Darby would be well advise to reexamine their business plan before committing more resource to the Julau JV.
Political Cover
Second, if you choose to plough ahead – secured in the knowledge that the politicians in the State government will provide you with political cover, and will suppress any objection to your venture using the usual tricks or even with the full oppressive instrument of the State goverment (including the police field force) as has often happen, then by all means.
We are Helpless in the face of Government onslaught
Indeed, there is not a thing that the mostly poor, illiterate Dayaks, or even the NGOs,and much less the Dayak politician themselves, can do. Some of the Dayaks may end up dying, or going to jail – for defending their ancestral NCR land, but as a corporate entity, it may not be in your mission to conduct business with a social conscience.
BN scam in Konsep Baru
If that describe your company, it matters not if you are a large corporate giant like Sime Darby, or a very small company : I would not welcome you – and neither would – majority of Dayak community who is aware of the scam in the BN government NCR land Konsep Baru scheme.
My suggestion for moving forward
If as you said at the outset, that you are interested to conduct your business, in the most responsible way, then I imagine, you may want to pursue the following alternative approach, as outline below:-
1. Set up an OP mill in an area with OP potential
2. Provide nursery, tech advise and soft loans
3. Carve out the area with basic roads for OP act
4. Design an OP planting scheme with NCR land
5. Assist with surveying techniques and tools
6. Lease some parcels of land directly from owner
7. Farm-out the OP cultivation to land owners
8. Seek ltd monopoly of operating mill in area
9. Work with NGOs, local native leaders and govt
10.Provide transport, costed against FFB tonnage
11.Explain this model to each longhouse,door2door
12.Maybe possible to get Not-for-profit label
13.Provide or broker heavy machinery for rental
14.Train and employ local youths, incl senior post
15.Best Environmental practise, avoid pulau,river
16.Allow people to forage for wild vege in OP
17.Provide storage/shop for fertilizers,chem etc
18.Start small,establish track record with folks
19.Modern,integrated farming concept-not OP only
20.Learn the local dialects
Smart Partnership
If you do this successfully,many NCR landowners in an larger area will seek your “smart partnership”. I fully respect that every company would be in business to make profits, and in my view – you can still make huge profit this way, and still be world class in social investment.
This model will build capacity in the NCR land owners. While your company farm out the cultivation to the locals via some partnership scheme, your company can concentrate on core downstream mill operation and expand to biofuels if the oil price becomes favourably high. Overall cultivation productivity should increase, since the landowners would be motivated, as compare to imported Indonesion workers. The generated capacity for larger agribusiness partnership, will position your company to diversify to other downstream agribusiness incl food processing.
Dayak prefer to move forward without LCDA
I firmly believe that this investment model can be executed without LCDA involvement, in spite of what you might have heard to the contrary. And by all indications, the Dayaks will very likely prefer to be fully engaged in the development of their NCR land.
As rural Dayaks still practise gentleman agreeman, there is very little risk of people renege from a partnership agreement: at any rate, I believe there is a legal way to guarantee such scheme with NCR land parcel as collatoral(witness by local government officers and native leaders).
If you want to discuss this further, feel free to write to me (Dr John has my contact details).I’m happy to respond to any of your query.
Best Regards, Meramat Tajak
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MT..Congrats for well write-up.
Good food for thought for GTJ…let others be awared that there are surely brainy Dayaks out there.