Sarawak PAS calls CM to intervene in land issue

MIRI: PAS Sarawak has requested the Sarawak Chief Minister to quickly resolve the alleged lost ownership of land belonging to the Malay and Jatti Meirek communities here.

Party commissioner Jofrie Jaraiie claimed that these communities who lived in Miri suburb areas inherited their ancestral land but have lost their ownership because the land status of Native Customary Right (NCR) was converted into state land status without their knowledge.

“In fact, there are land given to developers and plantation companies to be developed,” he said in a statement here yesterday.

Jofrie said the state government especially Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg should quickly step in by assisting to restore the land ownership rights of the affected communities and should not let this legacy land to fall into the hands of foreigners who were only interested in gaining profit without thinking of the fate of the locals.

In addition, he said there were also heritage land of Jatti Miriek and the land of the Malays in Miri being handed over to developers as the status of heritage land was changed to state land or mixed zone.

He said one such example was the case of more than 1,000 hectares of NCR land in Pujut, Miri that had been changed from NCR land that belonged to Jatti Meirek communities to state land.

“PAS has taken the initiative to meet and ask the officer at the Miri Department of Land and Survey on the status of land applications made by Pujut land heirs, and the feedback we received from the officer was that the land status has changed to state land and has been handed over to the Forestry Department to be developed,” he explained.

He said that the land was said to be turned into oil palm plantation, which caused many of the original land owners to be furious and disappointed.

“We were also told that the change of the land status was done because the land was not claimed during the land reconnaissance in the early 1980s, so it automatically became a state land,” he said, adding that it was not the fault of the original owners since the medium of communication was lacking in the 1980s to inform them of such ruling. - Bernama