Dato Gerawat Gala
MIRI: State Legislative Assembly deputy speaker Dato Gerawat Gala has refuted a statement made by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) State Leadership Council (MPN) secretary Joshua Jabeng that not an inch of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land has been returned to the native landowners.
Gerawat, who is also Mulu assemblyman, said the statement which was published on Sunday (April 18) was either a deliberate lie or completely misconceived.
“On the contrary, the government does recognise and give land titles over NCR land to the NCR owners.
“Over the last 10 years, the Land and Survey Department (LSD) has surveyed 2.44 million acres of NCR land under Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code, of which 1.9 million acres have been gazetted under the same section and 18,444 acres under Section 18 have been issued to individual NCR owners after the perimeter survey and gazette of NCR land under Section 6,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Gerawat pointed out that the survey and gazetting of NCR land under Section 6 was documentary proof of recognition that such land is NCR land and not state land as frequently alleged by certain quarters.
He further said that if NCR lands become state land by reason of its survey and gazette under Section 6 as alleged by some quarters, then the title to such land should be issued under Section 13 of the Sarawak Land Code which applies to alienation of state land.
“Section 18 title cannot be issued over state land and can only be issued over NCR land. The issue of individual titles to NCR land owners under Section 18 is a continuous effort by the Gabungan Parti Sarawak government through LSD until all areas surveyed and gazetted under Section 6 are issued with Section 8 titles.
“The government has been making annual budget allocations for the survey and issue of titles over NCR land, and NCR land owners get their land titles for free to be held in perpetuity,” he explained.
In addition to recognising and giving titles to NCR land, Gerawat said the government also recognises and issues title to land commonly known as Pemakai Menoa and Pulau Galau, which was made possible by the amendment to the Sarawak Land Code by the government through the new Clause 6A in the Sarawak Land Code.
He said that the new Section 6A gives recognition to Pemakai Menoa and Pulau Galau which are now referred to as Native Territorial Domain (NTD) up to a maximum area of 1,000 hectares per native community settlement.
“Before this Section 6A amendment, Pemakai Menoa and Pulau Galau were not recognised as NCR land,” he said.
Gerawat added that the state government also made amendment to Section 28 of the Sarawak Land Code to further protect the rights of NCR land owners.
Through this amendment, he said NCR and NTD owners have the right to have their NCR and NTD land to be excised from any provisional lease (PL), which before the amendment cannot be excised from the PL but can only be compensated for by monetary payment.
“The amendment to the Sarawak Land Code as explained above was to recognise and give titles over NCR and NTD land to the owners and this will involve millions of acres of NCR and NTD land.
“In the light of these facts, Joshua Jabeng’s allegation that not an inch of NCR land has been returned to the native owners is baseless and an outright lie. The so called agrarian land reform he mentioned is rather naive and more of a day dream,” he pointed out.
In a news report, Joshua had said that not a single inch of NCR land had been returned to the native owners.
Hence, he said PKR would focus on ‘land agrarian reform’ as its main manifesto in the next state election.