GERAN KOMUNAL
Communal Land Title Development (Geran Komunal)
The Communal Land Title Development or ‘Geran Komunal’ is the most important programme, and the main task for the SLDB development agenda in Sabah. This new in-situ palm oil development is an extension of the former settlers scheme introduced by the State government to develop the community land together with the rural poor. The objectives are to protect, and to provide income opportunity which at the same time to bring revenue to the State. This new development model also is an initiative by the State government to efficiently speed up the process of giving land rights to the community.
According to the State, the CLT serves several objectives (Source: Institute Development Study of Sabah):
- To protect the interest or the rights of the Sabahan people on the state land adjacent to their premises or villages;
- To speed up the process of releasing the land title (Native Title/NT) to the Sabahan people through the communal block title;
- To solve the issue of Native Cu-stomary Right (NCR) among the Sabahan people without going through an in-depth land investigation;
- To solve the issue of overlapping land applications and to hand over land without bias and injustice;
- To avoid the Sabahan people selling off their lands and land approvals;
- To eliminate poverty through systematic land allocation and optimal land development.
The first launching of the project was in 2009 in Lalampas, Tongod District which almost reached its completioned schedule in 2016. The concept is similar to the success model implemented by SLDB in Dalit Estate, Keningau which is based on the profit sharing model. Altogether, 1022 individuals – descendants of families that had previously lived in Lalampas – were considered eligible to participate in the scheme.