Member of Parliament for P216 Bintulu Dato Seri Tiong King Sing was saddened to find out a longhouse had recently openly erected the banners and flags of the Opposition Party surrounding their premises following a land dispute.

“What saddened me most is that both the State and Federal Government had helped for the resettlement of the people including the clearance of the site for the construction of new longhouse for them besides providing basic amenities for the need of these people,” said Tiong.

Tiong said he had personally met the developer over the land development near this longhouse.

“To my finding, the developer had proven that the longhouse folks had all agreed and endorsed either by their signatures or thumb-print to allow the developer to alienate their rights in allowing the latter to develop the said land after obtaining the agreed sum of compensation,” explained Tiong.

However, Tiong said the problem arose as the villagers rescinded their earlier agreement after squandering their monies and demanded for more compensation from the developer. 

“The onus is one the villagers as they should have consulted Resident or District Office if they claimed they actually did not know the content of the agreement they had entered upon.

Tiong said this at the Leaders With the People Session organized by the Special Affairs Department of the Ministry of Information at Rumah Bana in Sebauh District Friday night.

Tiong also reminded the community leaders of the rural folks not to be carried away by emotion upon instigation made by Opposition that were all out to garner some political mileages for the coming State General Election.

He described the occasion like this (Leaders With the People session) was an ideal avenue where officials from the respective government departments could sit down and the longhouse folks could voice their grievances and requests for attention.

Tiong urged the people not to adopt a confrontational approach or threats as means to resolve any problems they were facing.  

On the two –week drought as experienced by the 11 longhouses’ folks in Sebungan, Tiong asked the JKR and the Bintulu Resident office to expedite pipe-laying project to pump water from the nearby reservoir as a remedy.

He also agreed to allocate RM15,000 as part of the overall cost for the rural electrification scheme to supply electricity for  Rh Dana.

Tiong also assured the people he would bring the matter up with Telekom Malaysia to provide telecommunication services to the rural populace.

Earlier Kemena State Assemblyman Dr Stephen Rundi anak Utom said it was imperative for the rural folks to change their mindset and attitude.

“You must broaden your vision instead of asking for zinc roofing or other building materials all the time from the government,”he remarked.

He pointed out the longhouse folks should realize the treasure was right underneath their feet if they took the trouble to develop their Native Customary Rights land rather then letting them lying idle all these years.

He said they would remain as what they were now for years to come even they were possessing thousands of acres of NCR land without bothering to develop it.

Rundi commended the folks in Rh Bana as they had taken initiative to plant Cempedak and other tropical fruits that had brought them good income during harvesting season.

He also reminded the rural folks to invest their income on the education of their children.