MIRI: Native Customary Right land owners (NCR) have been told not to let their greed control them when asking for their land to be surveyed.
“Please, do not make false claims over the boundaries just because you want to have a bigger size of land when the perimeter survey is carried out.
“If the size of your land is authentic, the authority will have no problems approving it but there are some people sometimes are greedy and want their land to be surveyed beyond the original boundary,” said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan here yesterday (Oct 3).
He also urged community associations such as the Kedayan Association in Miri to approach their people and organise dialogue sessions in their respective areas in order to get their feedbacks and inputs before the perimeter surveys were carried out to avoid any confusion.
Citing efforts made by the Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) in Kuching to organise dialogue sessions with the Bidayuhs in Serian, Lundu and Bau and collect feedback and communicate on their land boundaries, Tengah said such initiative helped in the perimeter survey works.
On perimeter surveying works, he pointed out that they were continuous because the Sarawak government under the leadership of Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg always recognised and safeguarded the people’s rights on Native Customary Right land (NCR).
Awang Tengah added that the surveying works had been carried out since the 1960s to ensure the issuance of land titles to the landowners of NCR land.
“For the period of 50 years, since 1960 to 2010 we have covering 260,000 hectares (642,460 acres) of NCR land. However, the output using the old method is not very much encouraging; an average 5,200 hectares of NCR land were measured for the period of one year compared to the new initiative for NCR Land Survey programme,” he said yesterday (Oct 3) at the presentation of 362 NCR land titles under Section 18 to 265 owners from two villages, namely, Kampung Nusah and Kampung Sebalik Tiris.
According to Awang Tengah, from 2010 until now, Sarawak Land and Survey Department covered approximately 999,853 hectares (2.47 million acres) out of the total area of 776,226 hectares or 1.9 million acres gazetted under the new initiative for the NCR Land Survey programme.
“Just imagine the different output using the new NCR land survey programme compared to the old method,” he said.
Also present were Assistant Ninister for Woman, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Rosey Yunus cum Bekenu Assemblywoman and Lambir assemblyman Ripin Lamat.
