By NATASHA JEE & NUR ASHIKIN LOUIS
KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing has lambasted land critics for continually misleading the people that Section 6 of the Land Code is a prelude to government grabbing the native customary rights (NCR) land.
Masing said those critics should know better that Section 6 is to protect the land rights of the natives.
On the procedure of NCR land surveying, he said it can be done under Section 6 then followed by Section 18 which is applied in the perimeter surveying of individual land ownership.
He said on May 11, the Land and Surveys Department will be going to his longhouse in Kapit to launch a surveying programme under Section 18.
“The surveying under Section 18 in my longhouse is a pilot project to prove to critics that the recent NCR land Bill as tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas was neither wrong nor misleading,” he said when met by reporters at the end of the assembly sitting yesterday.
He said once the NCR land surveying done under Section 18, the Dayak community must make a will to include who will inherit the land once the title holder passes away.
“For instance, in the longhouse, there are four siblings, all the names must be included… If the land ownership only has one name and if that person passes away, the other siblings will have a problem as to who is going to take over.
“This is one very important aspect of ownership which the Dayak community must learn to accept,” he stressed.
He went on to assure that nobody can take it away any land surveyed under Section 6.
“There will be no quarrelling and there should be no more confusion again after we got titles under Section 6.
“Of course, the government can take it but with fair compensation. It’s the same with other land, title or no title…government can take for public use but fair compensation must come in.”
