A NEW department with a RM85 million budget will oversee development in all Chinese new villages as Pakatan Harapan moves to tighten its grip on these settlements.

The New Village Development Department under the Housing and Local Government Ministry will look into infrastructure developments in these new villages, such as building community halls, basketball courts, road repairs, drainage works and building public libraries.

There are 613 Chinese new villages in Malaysia, of which 436 were formed by the British colonial government during the Emergency period.

Another 134 are organised villages (kampung tersusun) – resettlement villages for those displaced as a result of natural disasters or land acquisitions – and 43 are fishing villages (kampung bagan).

With a reported population of about 1.5 million, a majority of these villages are in Perak, followed by Johor, and have for long been Barisan Nasional’s vote bank, especially its ethnic Chinese component, MCA.

The villages are spread out over the 199 parliamentary constituencies in the peninsula and provide a tipping vote in some of the urban and semi-urban seats currently held by PH components DAP and PKR.

However, the voting trend of the largely aging voters turned beginning the 2004 general election, largely due to MCA’s inability to handle issues affecting these villagers, mainly land ownership and lack of proper development.

Under the previous BN government, new villages were parked under the Prime Minister’s Department with a minister in charge. 

However, PH has pushed it back to the Housing and Local Government Ministry with the aim for these new villages to be handled effectively and better and with the aim of locking up their votes for DAP and PKR.

According to the ministry’s special functions officer Chua Yee Ling, the department now plans to use the RM85 million budget to spur growth in these villages.

“We’re aiming to enliven new villages through planning,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

The hope is that public facilities attract human traffic to spur further development in these new villages.

“We welcome architects, engineers, artists to participate in the design and planning, and I will be in charge of coordinating with them.

“I believe there are many talents among Malaysians and if we can communicate with the talents, I can match them with appropriate work (in new villages).”

Chua said, for example, if a new village wants to establish a recycling centre, a suitable talent will be matched with the village chief so that the latter will receive the input of experts.

Besides matchmaking, Chua said she is also in charge of inter-departmental communications and meeting state executive councillors in charge of new villages.

She believes that the government has the resources but needs better communication and channelling of allocations to achieve a better outcome.

The government has already listed out model new villages that others can follow.

Development guidelines

On long-standing land issues in new villages, Chua said land matters fall under the state governments, but the federal government can establish guidelines for states to handle land matters in new villages.

“Many new villages do not have proper land planning and new villages in urban areas are now facing increasing pressure due to rapid development. Unoccupied land in new villages may be turned into private land or a private development.

“If there is a proper policy for new village land matters, it will help development as a whole because land policies and planning can be streamlined in such areas.”

Chua said the government hopes to turn new villages into model communities so they can spearhead the development of other communities.

As such, a village head must fulfil more requirements and conditions and youth are also encouraged to occupy the positions.

“New villages are old places, introducing new blood and ideas may produce different results. Letting the youth lead such communities may also bring change.”

Chua also said new villages have potential but are like hidden gems that need to be polished through activities and creativity. – August 12, 2019.