PAHANG’S crackdown on illegal farming of Musang King has finally gained the public support it deserves. Not that the people didn’t give their support to the state’s crackdown in the past. They did, but were unhappy that the crackdown, when it came at all, was sporadic.
The villagers who watched state land being plundered for at least 40 years were hoping for rapid-fire action by the authorities against the encroachers, but it remained a mere hope for the longest time.
Now, with the royal rebuke issued on April 16, not just against the illegal durian farmers and their political supporters but also against the state authorities, it is all systems go.
In his winding-up speech on the final day of the state assembly sitting on Thursday, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail declared land encroachment a criminal offence and promised legal consequences for offenders. “We will use all legal provisions to reclaim every inch of illegally occupied land,” he promised.
And to remove any doubt that he means business, he said the state government would not bow to pressure, threats or tactics used by irresponsible parties. Way to go, we say. State resources must not be allowed to be stolen like this “for the benefit of greedy parties”, to borrow the words of Wan Rosdy.
There are people among us who think illegal farming of Musang King durians for export is okay. Here is our advice: do not go glorifying theft. As Sultan of Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah said, land encroachment is the state’s primary enemy, surpassing even drugs and crime.
Calls are also being made for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to probe governance practices related to the land clearing. Not that the MACC didn’t do anything. In 2021, it did launch such a probe, but more than four years of waiting for results is too long.
Besides, MACC did announce in July that year that 80 per cent of the investigation was completed. Given the number of parties involved and the long time that had elapsed, it did ask for it to be given time. Admittedly, the probe would take MACC back four decades.
It is not clear if its 2021 probe goes back that far, but if it did, gathering evidence would not be an easy thing. Land administrators and others in charge of governance of state land would have retired into oblivion. Not impossible to trace, but a humongous task nevertheless.
There is a lesson in all this. Never put off to tomorrow what can be done today. This applies to not only the state officers who are responsible for safeguarding the state’s resources, but also the police and graft-busters. Why this robbery of state resources was allowed to go on for four decades remains a mystery.
It isn’t clear if politics had something to do with it then, but it certainly does now. Politics must respect the law, not the other way around.
As Al-Sultan Abdullah told the state assembly last week, and as reiterated by Wan Rosdy, encroachment on state land not only violates the law but also undermines the sovereignty and dignity of the state’s administration.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
