By Peter Sibon
KUCHING, Nov 9: The state government will outsource perimeter survey under Section 6 of the Land Code to speed up surveying of the remaining 430,000 hectares of native customary right (NCR) land in Sarawak, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
So far, out of the total of 1.3 million ha of NCR land, roughly 870,000 ha have been surveyed, and out of this, about 670,000 ha have been gazetted.
“Because of the manpower shortage faced by the Land and Survey Department, we plan to outsource the surveying of NCR land to private surveyors so as to expedite the pace of perimeter survey under Section 6,” Uggah told reporters after a courtesy call from Deputy Minister of Rural Development Sivarasa Rasiah at his office at the DUN complex here today.
Kapit MP Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi was also present.
Uggah explained that the government had to start surveying the NCR land under Section 6 so that it could resolve conflicts between the state and NCR landowners, as well as among the landowners themselves.
“When that exercise is done in the future, then we can shift it to Section 18, where individual lots will be surveyed and, subsequently, we will be issuing titles to individual landowners,” he said.
Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development, commended Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) for assisting the government to survey their own land and to provide boundaries between state land and their own NCR land.
He noted that the Bidayuh community had gone to the extent of dividing the land among themselves, according to their own lots.
Meanwhile, Uggah denied that the state government was taking over the people’s land under Section 6.
“The accusation that the state government is taking away the people’s NCR land after we have carried out the perimeter survey under Section 6 is not true. It is also illogical because we have spent a lot of time, money and resources in carrying out such an exercise,” he explained. — DayakDaily
