SIBURAN: A group of more than 20 villagers from Kampung Danu, off Jalan Puncak Borneo, yesterday lodged a report at the Siburan district police headquarters, claiming that their individual plots had been encroached on.
The complainants said they had been cheated by the contractor and investors.
Claiming that they represented the villagers of Kampung Danu who were against the logging activities and oil palm plantation project, the group arrived at the police station at 10am and lodged their police report with Corporal Cinderella Kais.
In the report, the group led by Cosleycan Ahon, said since five years ago, the villagers were never paid their land rental and their share from the sale of logs extracted from the village’s forest.
They said their land had been cleared and some areas had been planted with oil palm while logs had been extracted and sold.
Speaking to reporters after lodging the police report, Cosleycan said 72 land owners, who are supposed to be
participants of the oil palm project, were only paid RM1,500 upon signing their Letters of Attorney (LAs).
“Upon signing the LAs, they were supposed to be paid RM25,000 but they only received RM1,500 each while thousands of tons of logs in the area had been been extracted and sold.
“So where has the money gone?” he asked.
Cosleycan claimed that the oil palm plantation project had encroached into individual lots of the villagers.
“Initially, they promised to do logging on tana birapoh (communal land) only”.
Cosleycan urged the police and other authorities, including the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (SKM), to act on his report.
He said the group would also lodge a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) soon.
