I have several concerns with regard to Pahang state government’s recent announcement of a plan to ensure sustainable development in Cameron Highlands, which judging from the current resources and budget of the state government, whether the state government is capable of implementing the series of measures as planned in an effective and efficient manner.
Therefore, i would like to represent the residents of Cameron Highlands to raise three questions and hope that the state government can clear people’s confusion so as to ensure that the grand plan will not fail due to poor execution.
The state government has followed the decision made by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah in December, 2018 whereby the agricultural policy in Cameron Highlands needs improvement and a longer agricultural land tenure should be studied. Under the BN administration, farmers in Cameron Highlands could only obtain Temporary Operating License (TOL) that has the least protection. Also, the fact that the renewal of TOL was always delayed often rendered TOLs as “expired and illegal licenses”. As a result, farmers have always been worried about the status of their land, whereas indirectly the state government’s fiscal position is negatively affected as it could not maximise its revenue from its lands.
As TOL only lasts for a year, the land and agricultural policy in Cameron Highlands is not sustainable. Farmers who are constantly perturbed by the renewal of their licenses would not adopt long-term and sustainable planning to run their farms. In order to harvest and to obtain profits within the license period, farmers are forced to choose highly polluting chemical fertilizers to stimulate their plants to grow fast, and as a consequence the health of land is deteriorating.
Based on the statement issued by Menteri Besar, the state government will give the current 5519 hectares of TOLs in Cameron Highlands the ownership title that will be managed by Perbadanan Setiausaha Kerajaan (PSK) to lease out the land to farmers. Meanwhile, the state government also makes it compulsory for farmers who lease the land to obtain the Malaysian Good Agricultural Practices (MyGAP) certificate. Besides that, in order to better manage hillslopes, farmers have to obtain permission from the District Council to install plastic shelters at hillslopes.
The conversion of TOL to leasehold, even though not the most ideal solution, is better that TOL that does not give farmers any form of guarantee. Nevertheless, the first question is how will the lease fee be calculated? Is the state government planning to incorporate water bill and to collect a reasonable lease fee?
With that I urge the Pahang State Government to organise dialogues and negotiations with all farmers’ associations in Cameron Highlands in order to design a win-win plan for both state government and farmers. Such a plan should not burden the farmers but ought to assist them in adopting new farming technologies so as to improve productivity, lower cost and ultimately transform and upgrade the agricultural sector.
The second question is that given that the series of measures including the processing of certificates and issuance of lease will certainly require a lot of manpower and resources, will the state government have adequate manpower and resources to execute its grand plan? The current manpower in the District and Land Office and the District Council is obviously inadequate, and therefore people have the right to know if the state government is ready in terms of financial and manpower? How much budget will the state government set aside for its plan? Will the state government pass the costs on to farmers instead? If the state government is unable to prepare adequate manpower to execute its plan, how will it prevent corruption that might breed due to red tape?
The third question is: What are the details of establishing the Cameron Highlands Development Corporation (Perbadanan Kemajuan Cameron Highlands) by the state government, such as its administrative structure, division of power, job scopes, changes in local policies? How would the development corporation coordinate and intervene in the powers of the two local government units, namely Cameron Highlands District and Land Office as well as Cameron Highlands District Council? Will there be overlaps in terms of powers and job scope that might negatively affect governance and efficiency, or rather a consolidation of various local agencies will result in an overpowering agency?