By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Sept 17: There is a real shortage of licensed land surveyors, especially with professional qualifications, in Sarawak to carry out the massive field work involving hundreds of kilometres of roads, telecommunication tower sites, hundred thousand hectares of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land, and other development projects.
Raising this, Land and Survey Sarawak director Datu Abdullah Julaihi pointed out that the number of technical surveyors available from the Land and Survey Department (LSD) combined with the public and private sectors is only about 150 to 160 groups.
“The technical manpower needed to go down to the field and do the surveying works is critically needed not only by LSD but also other departments as well as the private sector to complete the job.
“Since 2017, the (Sarawak) government has announced many infrastructure and development projects requiring survey work. This involved hundreds of kilometres of roads, apart from the hundred thousand hectares of NCR land and individual NCR land.
“All of these need to be measured, and physical manpower is needed to carry out the fieldwork,” he said.
He highlighted this in his speech at the closing ceremony of Land and Survey Sarawak Innovation and Integrity Day 2022, which was officiated by the Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg at a hotel here tonight.
As such, Julaihi emphasised that signing the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between LSD and several organisations tonight marked an important collaboration to increase the skilled and professional human capital in the land surveyor field to meet the increasing demand and needs related to boundaries in Sarawak.
“Hopefully, they will have the opportunity to further their studies to the diploma and degree levels or even to the masters level with the accreditation of certificates obtained from these professional bodies, universities, and other local higher education institutions,” he added.
The event witnessed the signing of three MoUs; the first was with Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad for the printing and supplying of security paper services for land titles, deeds, and licenses.
The second MoU was with Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) to train a batch of selected students in the Diploma in Town and Regional and Planning course. This is a practical approach to securing a pool of qualified candidates to fill the positions of assistant town and country planners to serve ministries, LSD, and Bintulu Development Authority (BDA), among others.
The third MoU was with Centexs, Land Surveyors Board Sarawak, and the Association of Consulting Licensed Land Surveyors Sarawak (ACLS) to collaborate on implementing a Land Survey Certification Programme.
Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, Deputy Minister of Integrity and Ombudsman Datuk Juanda Jaya, State Secretary Dato Sri Abu Bakar Marzuki, ACLS chairman Datu Sudarsono Osman, UiTM vice chancellor for Strategy Prof Ts Dr Nor Hayati Saad and Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Bhd group chief executive Mohd Shahar Yope were among those present. — DayakDaily
