SIBU (July 14): The Gabungan Party Sarawak (GPS)-led state government ought to review the Sarawak Land Code and draft amendments to either provide an automatic renewal of land titles in Sarawak with no renewal premium payable, or to convert all leasehold lands to freehold status.

In making this call, former Bukit Assek assemblywoman Irene Chang said with increased revenue collected from the state sales tax, where a cumulative sum of RM15.8 billion had been collected from 2019 to last year, there was no reason for the government to continue collecting land tax from the people.

“Let this windfall from the increased revenue be not just a figure on paper, but be translated into a visible and tangible benefit to be enjoyed by all Sarawakians,” she said in a statement.

Chang said Sarawakians deserved to be acknowledged as true landowners in their own right without any threat of their lots being taken by the government.

“In Sarawak, we are fully autonomous in our Land Code. After more than 60 years after colonial rule, it is time for the GPS government to amend the Sarawak Land Code to allow Sarawakians the right to own freehold properties in the state, without the need to pay hefty premiums to renew their land titles.”

Chang said since the reclassification of land category by the Land and Survey in June 2022, the people had received ‘many indignant voices of unhappiness’ over the hefty premium, which the landowners must pay to renew their titles.

“A landowner in Sungai Bidut was flabbergasted when the premium, which he was told to pay by the Land and Survey, amounted to RM14,410 – an increase of 2,321.85 per cent from the RM595, which his neighbour had paid for his land in April 2022.

“These two parcels of land, existing side by side, are more or less of the same size and have been reclassified from country to suburban lands; hence, the leap in the premium payable,” she added.

According to Chang, majority of these owners of agricultural lands are farmers, and the lands to which they apply for renewal of title are those being passed down from their forefathers.

“The lands are their only assets that they depend on to support their simple livelihoods.

“To demand that they come up with hefty premiums, such as the RM14,100, before their lands can be renewed, is denying these people one of their very basic rights – to own land without any hindrance.”

Chang said the demand for premium before renewal of title was confirmation that the state government practised ‘a regressive land policy’.

In stating this, she said even as Sarawak had prospered through the increased revenue from the state sales tax since 2019, rather than empowering the people, the government had prevented them from owning lands without any land tax, whether in the form of quit rents, which is still payable for all lands other than small agricultural lands and residential lands, and hefty premiums.

“This is regressive because even in the Brooke era, applicants were eligible for a lease of government land up to 900 years. Since the late 2000s, the Sarawak government has practised the policy of imposing a condition of development on perpetuity titles (999 years) that their terms are to be reduced to 90-year leases after the development.

“Presently, if a landowner wants to apply for an extension of their title to a 90-year lease, instead of the usual 60-year lease, the individual would have to pay an additional sum of 30 per cent on top of its existing rate for a 60-year lease.

“Since the consequence of failing to pay these premiums would cause the lands to be reverted to (the status of) state lands, Sarawakians are therefore forever deemed as tenants leasing the lands from the state, who is the real owner of all the lands in Sarawak.”