KUCHING: Ba’Kelalan assemblyman Baru Bian cannot lie and hoodwink Sarawakians anymore by saying that Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code does not guarantee proprietary rights to natives who are claiming their native customary rights (NCR) over ancestral land or to get their land surveyed or alienated to them, says Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The Sarawak Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister was commenting on Baru’s recent statement, in which the latter had hit out at Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas over Section 6 and Section 18 NCR land survey matters.
“He and his family members are beneficiaries to this process, which he has all along accused the state government of misleading them in.
“It is now proven that the state government has been sincere and it is Baru who has been lying,” said Abdul Karim when contacted.
Earlier, Uggah had struck out at Baru for criticising the state government’s NCR land survey programme when he and his family members had accepted the survey method for their NCR land and thus benefited from it.
In response, Baru in a statement said he had never requested that their said land should be surveyed under Section 6 first.
He said it was his right as a native to be issued land titles under Section 18 of the Sarawak Land Code, reiterating his view that NCR lands should be surveyed straightaway under Section 18.
The state government through the Land and Survey Department first conducts perimeter surveys of NCR land under Section 6 to be gazetted, followed by the survey of individual lots under Section 18 for the issuance of land titles.
