SIBU: The 50-odd landowners in Rantau Panjang are unhappy with the reduced compensation they are being offered for land to be acquired for a shipbuilding industry.
“As land owners, we have the right to demand for fair compensation,” said group leader Wong Kwong Toh at a ‘Unity Dinner’ organised by the landowners here.
The landowners have formed an umbrella body called the Rantau Panjang Landowners’ Rights Committee of which Wong is chairman.
Wong said while the landowners “fully support” the government’s initiative in establishing the development of shipbuilding industrial estate, they fail to understand why the compensation is RM120,000 per acre and not RM240,000 per acre as was previously the case.
According to Wong, on October 2 last year, few pieces of Rantau Panjang land were taken by the government for the development of a shipbuilding zone.
One owner was compensated RM240,000 per acre. But six months later, another 200 acres of land there were acquired by the government for the second phase of industrial development. This time the compensation was quoted at RM120,000 per acre.
“The compensation has dropped by 50 per cent to just RM120,000 per acre as compared to the previous compensation of RM240,000. This is strange, yet when we enquired from the Land and Survey Department on the low compensation price, we were not given a reasonable reply.
“The valuation price by a licensed valuer C H William is RM300,000 per acre. But the average compensation from the government is even less than RM100,000 which is so much below the valuation price,” he lamented.
Wong said the landowners will continue to pursue the matter with the government until a satisfactory end is reached.
