BINTULU: A total of 345 recipients from the Kakus, Murum, Jepak and Kemena constituencies received their respective land title letters under Section 18 of the Sarawak Land Code (KTN) in an official ceremony held at the Promenade Hotel, Bintulu on Thursday.

The ceremony was officiated by Sarawak Deputy Premier, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, who is also the Minister of Natural Resources and Urban Development II.

In his speech, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah stressed on the Sarawak government's commitment in recognising and protecting Native Customary Rights (NCR) land titles that are valid according to the law and supported by solid evidence.

According to him, although the NCR land survey work began since the 1960s, only 260,000 hectares of land had been successfully surveyed and given titles by 2010.

To speed up the process, he said, the state government implemented a two-stage approach starting in 2010, namely perimeter survey followed by individual survey, subject to complete applications and evidence.

“To date, more than 1.2 million hectares of land have been successfully measured perimeter-wise throughout Sarawak.

“This is clear evidence that the government is very serious in helping the people obtain official recognition of their land,” he said.

Datuk Amar Awang Tengah also acknowledged several challenges faced in this process including overlapping claims and the failure of applicants to be present during the survey work which caused delays.

To date, more than 9,000 individual lots have been measured involving more than 118,000 hectares of land, while 32,450 titles have been successfully issued under Section 18 of the KTN.

In the same development, he further stated that all recipients of the land title deeds will not be charged any land tax, premium or survey fees as all costs are fully borne by the state government.

He also called on the people to continue to fully cooperate in this survey process for the future of future generations.

“Land is an important asset that needs to be protected and inherited legally. The government will continue to carry out surveying work as long as the need exists,” he said.

Also present were Bintulu Division Resident, Datu Nyurak Keti, Murum Assemblyman, Kennedy Chukpai Ugon, Jepak Assemblyman, Iskandar Turkee, Bintulu Development Board General Manager, Datu Muhamad Yakup Kari, Director of Implementation Coordination Unit, Jasni Jubli, and Director of Land and Survey Department, Awang Zamhari Awang Mahmood. -UKASnews