Kota Kinabalu: The Sandakan Municipal Council demolished 4,620 squatter units between 2000 and 2008 and another 1,080 from 2009 to 2010. "In 2008, SMC also implemented a new policy whereby we contact the land owner(s) concerned if the squatter colony is on private land, to enable us to demolish the units for a fee," the Council's Head of Squatters Unit, Kassim Salamat.
He said this is so that the landowners would have a sense of responsibility of what is happening on their land. Before the demolition is carried out, SMC would normally issue a notice and local squatters affected would be put up either at the People Housing Project (PPR) homes or resettlement areas like Kg Sinusa 1 and 2 where they are provided a lot to build their house.
As for the foreign squatters, they would be referred to the Immigration Department for further action, he told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Illegal immigrant Problem in Sabah, which resumed its hearing, Monday.
Kassim said Sandakan had a huge immigrant population whose numbers surpassed that of local squatters. The two census exercises conducted by SMC between 2008 and 2012 showed altogether 32,095 squatters living in 7,628 illegal dwellings in 43 colonies in the district.
And 19,078 of them were foreigners including those with IMM13 refugee documents.
The rest were locals as they had MyKad.
"Twenty-four of the said squatter colonies are sitting on government land while the rest 19 on private lands," he said in his testimony before the commissioners led by Chairman Tan Sri Steve Shim. The afternoon session focused on foreign immigrants associated with the squatter problem and its implications to the district, its local residents and local authority.
Kassim, who has been with the Council since 1986 and headed the unit since 2011, said there are also foreign immigrants staying with local squatters on same squatter dwelling unit because of marriage (between foreigner and local).
Asked if private landowners were renting out their lands to squatters, he said there are two or three as far as he knew and the matter was referred to the relevant authority for action.
Kassim said SMC offered no privileges in terms of basic amenities to the squatters.
However, because some of the colonies have existed since a long time ago there were some who received political support that enabled assistance in the form of bridges and electricity supply, but only for locals.
On whether there was illegal electricity connections in the squatter colonies, he said there are but SMC with the cooperation of Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) disconnect it.
To another question, Kassim also admitted huge social problems caused by foreign squatters like selling Syabu, contraband cigarettes, turtle eggs, as well as causing losses to the untility firms through electricity and water thefts.
On whether the squatters posed any danger to the enforcers, Kassim said the squatters were dangerous and any operation is only carried out jointly with other enforcement agencies, especially police.
Kassim also said there were huge numbers of foreign immigrants in Sandakan including those who do not have any documentation but there are local employers who engaged them as they accept small pay.
"They (local employers) prefer to hire the immigrants because they can be paid very low," he said.
On what action is taken by SMC, he said SMC have a monthly meeting on licensing where they would use the avenue to refer the matter to the Labour Department for further action.
Asked whether it is true that whenever there was an enforcement exercise that part of the town by the seashore would be very quiet unlike normal days, he said yes.
He said there are many immigrants involved in trading activities without any business licence, but it was hard to detect any local involvement in renting out business licences to these foreigners.
On the implications of foreign immigrants in the district, he said he would rate their presence as only 30 per cent positive and negative 70 per cent. "The 30 per cent is for their contribution in building construction and plantation industries," he said.
Asked what the Government can do to deal with the huge number of foreign immigrant population in Sandakan, Kassim said he welcomed the implementation of Eastern Sabah Safety Command (Esscom) in East Coast because this can help to control their presence.
At the same time, he hoped for more cooperation from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) and other relevant agencies in tightening security along the East Coast.
The inquiry also heard that although Tawau was very close to Indonesia, the number of foreign squatters was very small compared to local squatters - 19,445 squatters of which 16,904 had Malaysian identification and only 2,541 being non-citizens.
Tawau Municipal Council (TMC) Inspector (Illegal Squatters in Tawau) Majid Haji Patola, in giving his testimony, said all of them were staying in 25 squatter colonies throughout the district, as based on the latest census data, which have 4,167 squatter dwellings.
Of the dwellings, 3,425 were occupied by citizens while the rest 491 by non-citizens.
He also said cholera is the most common disease associated to the squatter colonies there, but they would take action immediately upon detection, because TMC never give permission for them be provided with basic amenities.
