On September 5, 2019, IOI Pelita organized an event to handover cheques to 25 farmers who have not yet received the ex gratia payment (token of goodwill) for the plots of land they had occupied before the IOI Pelita Provisional Lease was established.

The ex gratia payment was an important milestone in the implementation of the dispute resolution process.  It was one of the key requests voiced by the affected communities, and for IOI Pelita it was possible to address it without waiting for the negotiation stage of the Resolution Plan. This is because these payments are linked to initial greenfield establishment and the negotiations (based on the Resolution Plan) would benefit from reducing past conflicts or disagreements while building trust between IOI Pelita and the communities.

At the beginning of the resolution process, in their discussions with IOI Pelita, communities claimed that there were still some farmers who have not received the ex gratia payment yet. In response, IOI Pelita asked these remaining farmers to submit their claims, which were then verified against IOI Pelita’s records of the past ex gratia payments. In the next step, IOI Pelita invited the validated claimants to come to the field to identify the location and boundary of the land in question. This was usually done in the presence of a village head and claimant’s neighbours to authenticate, validate and map the location and size of the land. This was important so that these land parcels are not disputed among the members of the community.

The results of this survey were socialized among the community members and adjusted based on their comments. Finally, 34 farmers were confirmed as recipients, out of which 25 decided to accept the payment at the soonest and the remaining 9 opted to receive it at the negotiation stage of the conflict resolution process. To ensure transparency, IOI Pelita developed a brochure which explained what ex gratia payment was and stressed the fact that by accepting the ex gratia payment a community member was not forgoing her/his right to present further claims during the negotiation stage. 

The ex gratia payment event was held in the presence of government officials representing Chief Minister of Sarawak, Ministry of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development of Sarawak (MANRED), Ministry for Local Government and Housing of Sarawak, Residen of Miri, District Office, and Pelita. In addition to the payment recipients, community leaders (Ketua Kaum) from the affected communities were also present to witness the ceremony.