E-Tanah more efficient

21/11/2007 The Star

PUTRAJAYA: Amendments to the National Land Code 1965 will ensure a more efficient land office administration, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Changes to the Act would include the e-Tanah system to be extended to the entire peninsula, following its successful implementaion in Penang last month.

Land talk: Najib chairing land council meeting in Putrajaya yesterday. On his right is Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk S. Sothinathan. — Bernama
“The pilot project in Penang, which promises to cut transaction time by half, is on schedule and is being implemented,” he told reporters after chairing the Cabinet committee meeting yesterday.

Najib said the amendments would be tabled at the next Parliament session.

Another proposed amendment is to empower state authorities to appoint agents to collect land premiums which is currently done through representatives of post offices and banks, he said.

The amendments would also allow permanent titles to be issued without having to first give temporary occupation licence, he said, adding that state authorities would also be allowed to approve applications to partition land that was less than 0.4ha.

Najib said another amendment would be to increase fines from RM10,000 to RM50,000 and the jail term from one year to five years for illegal extraction and removal of sand.

The Small Estate (Distribution) Act would also be amended to increase the value of small estates from RM600,000 to RM2mil.

“This will help in the smoother distribution of ancestral properties without having to go to court for a settlement,” he said.

Najib also confirmed that Sime Darby Bhd had been given the responsibility to lay the undersea power cable for the Bakun Dam project to generate power from Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia.

“It will undertake the project but whether it will outsource it or not, that is something else,” he said.

The cable project will involve laying two 700km submarine cables from Tanjung Datu on the Sarawak coast to Johor, overland lines covering the 600km from Bakun to Tanjung Datu and overland lines from the landing site in Johor to Bentong, 300km away.