The Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources has assured that Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code protects the rights of the natives in the state over their land.

Its Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said one of the cases which proves that the native rights are protected under the Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code is the outcome of the Federal Court case between The Superintendent of Land and Survey Department, Bintulu and others versus Amit Salleh and others.

In the case, it was decided that any extinguishment of rights gazetted within Section 6 would require payment of compensation.

Thus, he would like to emphasise the fact that gazetting an area under Section 6 of the Land Code is the first step to register and protect the rights of the people over land, as the land areas are demarcated, plotted onto the map and deposited with the Land and Survey Department, which can be inspected as it is properly surveyed.

“We have carried out direct individual surveys for the past 50 years since the 1960s through the Settlement Operation, Part III of the Land Code and Survey of ‘Kampung Tradisional’ but it has proven slow and was exposed to unnecessary issues in settling individual disputes on the ground, hence delaying the process of such surveys,” he added.

Apart from that, Awang Tengah also commented that the state government was now focusing on converting more than 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of land gazetted under Section 6 into individual Section 18 document of titles as this was a continuous effort and should be supported by every lawmaker in Sarawak.

He said through the achievement of the new survey work which started in 2010, an area of 880,541 hectares (2,175,817 acres) has been successfully measured by the perimeter through the first stage, of which 723,344 hectares (1,787,383 acres) have been gazetted until April 30, this year.

“That means that in just eight years we have successfully measured three times more than the previous method. The second stage of the programme, the area under Section 6, will be measured separately for the purpose of issuing land titles under Section 18 of the Code State land,” he said.

To date, he said 26,036 individual lots have been successfully measured, involving an area of 32,376 hectares (80,001 acres) which will be issued with letters of title under Section 18 of the State Land Code.

He also revealed that the state government has approved a budget allocation of RM40 million for the new survey work programme.

Awang Tengah said while the new Pakatan Harapan federal government also allocated a budget for the survey work of RM21.5 million, only RM10.75 million of the allocation from the federal government has been channelled so far.

He was replying to issues raised by Krian assemblyman Ali Biju, who questioned the efforts of the survey work and commenting that Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code does not protect the rights of the natives in Sarawak.