10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015)


LAND CONTROL IS KEY

FOR ORANG ASLI

 Colin Nicholas
 New Straits Times
 12 June 2010

ON a macro level, there is no denying that there have been significant improvements in the lives of the Orang Asli since Merdeka.

But the handful of Orang Asli graduates, business people and professionals or the availability of modern infrastructure or social services in some areas do not reflect the greater situation of the 147,000 population.

The 10th Malaysia Plan recognises that 50 per cent of the 29,990 Orang Asli households are living below the poverty line. Of these, about 5,700 households (19 per cent) are considered to be hardcore poor.

In contrast, the national poverty rate is a commendable 3.8 per cent, with only 0.7 per cent being hardcore poor.

The 10MP envisages that the poverty level among the Orang Asli will be halved by 2015. Is this possible?

Yes, if we follow the advice of the prime minister and think out of the box and avoid the paralysis of repeating past mistakes.

Some have observed that the majority of the Orang Asli today are at a level of socio-economic development the rural Malays were at five decades ago. I agree.

I am also convinced that what worked for the Malays in the 1960s and 1970s would also work for the Orang Asli today.

Subsidies, quotas, increased and sustained infrastructure development, localised and holistic development strategies, low leakages and dedicated delivery -- all worked well for the Malays then.

Because of the clearly uneven playing field, a policy of meritocracy, for example, would not allow many deserving Orang Asli students to attain tertiary education. Positive discrimination, based on need and economic situation, would.

Also, if in the past landless Felda applicants needed eight to 10 acres of land to pull themselves out of poverty, surely "giving" the already landed Orang Asli two to six acres, as envisaged in the 10MP, would ensure that they remain in poverty.

The 10MP calls for the institutionalisation of externally managed agricultural development projects in all new Orang Asli development schemes. The Orang Asli are against this concept as it makes them mere shareholders with entitlements only to externally determined dividends, rather than as independent (and proud) smallholders who are rewarded fairly for their efforts.

In fact, research has shown that Orang Asli in externally-managed agricultural schemes account for the bulk of the Orang Asli poor.

The income disparity between an Orang Asli dividend-earner and a smallholder is very wide. At the peak of the high rubber and oil palm prices, for example, Orang Asli smallholders were getting between RM1,500 and RM3,000 a month while those in managed schemes only received, at most, RM450 a month.

It should be clear, therefore, that the key to Orang Asli development, the key to pulling half the Orang Asli population out of poverty, is the ownership, control and management of their traditional lands.

The Orang Asli themselves are very clear of this truth. Hence the historic mass protest in Putrajaya in March against the proposals in policy and law to deny them this.

[While the original submission had the last paragraph, the NST-printed version ended without it.]