VOON Lee Shan has urged Sarawak to not yield to any more federal request for state land to site federal projects.

The pro-independence politician said the state government need only tell the federal government where to build the projects without having to alienate the plots of land.

“If Putrajaya is sincere (in helping) Sarawak, why not develop the land already allocated to it?” he asked.

His comment comes in response to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s recent statement that state governments should prioritise and expedite approval for land acquisition applications for federal projects.

The Parti Bumi Kenyalang president’s call can reopen a sore point in the state – Putrajaya’s refusal to return state land it received but never utilised.

Putrajaya also refuses to return state land it vacated, like former army bases.

Putrajaya allegedly will not return a large plot of land near Rambungan, some 30km from Kuching, which was supposed to house the new federal administrative centre under the Bandar 2020 project.

The land has been alienated for more than 20 years ago.

Voon said the land should be taken back if not utilised as it has been left idle to this day.

Not a tree has been felled and the state government is now in a dispute for the return of the land, he added.

He said the vesting of lands and refusal to return them when not utilised or when vacated is akin to a land grab by Putrajaya.

“It is the federal government’s responsibility to build schools in Sarawak. The state government should not have to surrender or transfer any land to the federal land commissioner for the purpose of building schools.

“The Sarawak government need only tell the federal government where to build them. In all federal projects in Sarawak, no land should be surrendered to the federal government.”

Voon asked whether the state government will surrender or transfer land on which the Pan-Borneo Highway sits “just because funds for the project came from the federal government”.

In 2019, legal adviser J.C. Fong said the state government told Putrajaya that it wants all the land alienated but not utilised for federal projects to be returned to the state.

He highlighted the plots of land of the Sarawak General Hospital’s former student nurses quarters; the army’s former ammunition depot near Saradise Commercial Centre in Kuching; the former Lau King Howe Hospital in Sibu; and, the former headquarters of the army’s First Division at Jalan Tun Zaidi in Kuching.

The state government has given Putrajaya a list of all the alienated land it wants returned, he added. – March 11, 2022.