bangkit.net

/PERMAS applauds “land for urban poor” in Selangor /
The Persatuan Masyarakat Selangor & Wilayah Persekutuan (PERMAS)
wholeheartedly welcome the Selangor government’s stand to agree in
principle to grant land titles to long-time residents of informal urban
settlements situated on state land. This was announced by Mohd Azmin
Ali, Gombak MP and also PKR Vice President.

We also affirm the stand of the state government’s position that the
PKNS should honor its commitments to long-time tenants of PKNS’ low-cost
flats who had entered into rent-to-buy agreements with the corporation
but are still paying rent after so many decades.

PERMAS applauds, and is in total agreement with Azmin’s statement that
“for private land, we urge the developers to compensate the squatters
with a quantum that is reasonable, not just to… give them RM5,000 and
tell them, ‘Get out of there.’ We won’t allow that”.

In reality based on our 20 years of working with urban poor housing
issues, PERMAS would like to highlight some of the gross violation of
human rights and grief injustice caused by profit hungry developers and
often working hand in hand with local government officials in the local
municipal councils and even local MPs and ADUNs.

/Paid RM 400 to move from 50-year old homes! /
For instance in Kg Berembang, Ampang /(behind the RISDA building, not
the part where residents have been living in tents),/ several hundred
families including a Buddhist temple were evicted from the place where
they have been living for since 1953. The developer offered some 200
families RM400 and moved them to Taman Wahyu PPR flats where they had to
rent for RM124 a month while waiting for low cost units to be built and
sold back to them.

But a handful of 30 families remained on the land and continued to
negotiate for better compensation because they felt cheated when the
developer did not fulfill their promise of RM400 a month for each family
to rent outside houses while waiting for their low cost flats to be
built on the same piece of land. Finally the strong arm tactics of then
MPAJ YDP and local MP managed to pressure the people to accept the deal
and to move out after being paid a meager compensation of RM3,700
compensated.

/PKNS builds on land granted to urban pioneers/
Another example is the case of the Sg Buluh urban pioneers that PERMAS
has been handling for the past 16 years. The 229 families living along
the railway tracks in Sg.Buluh were evicted in early 1992 and were
relocated to the rumah panjang temporary settlement in Rawang /(behind
the APMC Cement plant.)/

They were promised, land lots measuring 40 by 60 feet in Matang Pagar,
with promissory letters issued from the Gombak District office. In 1996,
instead of handing over the land over to the people as promised, the
Gombak District office had the State PKNS build medium and low cost
houses on their land and tried to sell them back to the people! The
Gombak District including then MB Mohd Khir Toyo warned the people they
would lose everything if they do not take the house offer despite the
residents pleading with him to respect the process of the court case
which was not even started yet. /(Video documentation available)/

After a series of actions to claim the land which included dialogues
with different Mentri Besars over the years, District offices, and even
with former MIC head Samy Vellu, the people finally took the case to
court in 2003 but it has been postponed for the past 6 years, with a
host of ridiculous reasons such as the Magistrate was on holiday, not
feeling well, and 3 times they claimed the case files were missing! The
case has the Gombak District Office and the PKNS as the plantiffs and
presently the residents are still waiting for the courts to set a date
for the hearing!

/PERMAS still waiting eagerly for meeting with MB/
The case examples mentioned above are just two of the many other cases
in Selangor that needs urgent attention of the State government to “undo
the wrongs” of the past administration!

We are eagerly waiting for the appointment promised to us by MB Tan Sri
Khalid through his Political Secretary Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad more than 2
weeks ago. PERMAS has drawn up a proposal of concrete actions to be
suggested to the MB on how people’s movements such as PERMAS can work
together with the Selangor government to address and deal with problems
of adequate housing and land for the urban poor in the state.

We believe that civil societies should adopt a “hands-on” approach
rather than being merely “bystanders” in the process of transforming
Selangor into a better state for all.

Mr Tan Jo Hann

President, PERMAS
Hp: 019-2145451
Email: jotan@pc.jaring.my