BETONG, Feb 6: Some 1.13 million hectares (ha) of native customary right (NCR) land in Sarawak have gone through the en-bloc perimeter survey under Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code to date.
Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said the sum was part of the estimated total of 2 million ha of NCR land in the State.
“For the Betong Division alone, a total of 14,322 ha had been surveyed and over 85,000 ha had been gazetted under Section 6 so far.
“These are out of a total of 174,342 ha of which their owners had requested to be surveyed.
“But at the same time, we have around 16,900 ha whose owners have declined the process due to instigation by certain quarters,” he said during the presentation ceremony of compensation totalling RM3.171 million to 59 NCR landowners for the construction of two road projects here today.
Uggah further explained that Section 6 survey was a faster option to segregate genuine NCR land from State land.
From Section 6, he said the next step was to go through the Section 18 survey for the issuance of the individual titles.
“When the government acquires NCR land for any development purposes, it will pay the compensation based on the Land And Survey Department’s valuation rate including the crop and infrastructure within.
“There is no issue of the government simply seizing such land without any compensation.
“Normally we will have little to no problems with those NCR land which have the titles but we will normally face some issues with those without the land titles,” he added.
At the function, Uggah announced a RM1.8 million government grant to upgrade the Betong Resident’s office and another RM200,000 for the Betong District office.
Also present were Deputy Minister for Urban Planning, Land Administration and Environment Datuk Len Talif Salleh; Deputy Minister of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development-cum-Layar assemblyman Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu; Betong MP Dr Richard Rapu; political secretary to Premier of Sarawak, Roseline Mapong; Betong Resident Richard Micheal Abunawas; Betong Land and Survey Department Superintendent Moris Nayub and Betong Public Works Department (JKR) divisional engineer Jadon Ng. — DayakDaily
