Kota Kinabalu: Kemabong Assemblyman Datuk Rubin Balang hopes the State Government will resolve land ownership issues affecting villagers staying within the Sabah Forest Industries (SFI) before acquisition by a new company is done. He said SFI was established in 1982 by taking land in Kemabong, Tenom and Sipitang with an area of approximately 7,200 acres, almost reaching a million acres.

“The establishment caused many disputes between the people and SFI for so long,” he said when debating the 2021 State Budget, Monday. He said this is a very large area which had been occupied by the Murut community for a long time and named 12 villages affected in Kemabong sub-district, three in Tenom and 15 in Sipitang. “The communities living in these areas have been there since the 1950s, some have villages, schools, and agricultural crops, while some are ancestral land passed on since 1700 to this day,” he said.