KUCHING: Sarawak is faced with a shortage of surveyors to carry out land surveying work in the field.
Land and Survey Department (JTS) Director Datuk Abdullah Julaihi said the number of surveyors in both JTS and the private sector in the state stood at 150 to 160.
“It is not that there aren’t enough people with diplomas and degrees to be surveyors but we lack the manpower to go and carry out survey work in the field.
“Since 2017, the state government has announced hundreds of kilometers of roads, building telecommunication towers, resettlement schemes and surveying of Indigenous and Bumiputera rights land. And all these require survey work,” he said.
He said this during the closing of the HIITS at Riverside Majestic Hotel on Saturday (Sept 18) evening.
Thus, he said the collaboration between JTS and several other agencies through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is very important in the effort to increase skilled and professional human capital in the land surveyor field to meet the increasing demand and need in Sarawak.
“It is not only beneficial to our department (JTS) but also to other departments as well as to the private sector.”
During the ceremony, three strategic collaborations were inked witnessed by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg
The first MoU was with Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad to supply and print the land titles and licence documents; a MoU with Universiti Teknologi Mara to train a selected batch of students in diploma courses on urban planning; and a Memorandum of Cooperation with Centre of Technical Excellence (CENTEXS), Land Surveyors Board Sarawak and the Association of Consulting Licensed Land Surveyors Sarawak to collaborate in implementing a land surveying certification programme.
