S’wak voters reminded not to be swayed by Dr M’s political ploy

KOTA SAMARAHAN: Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan has reminded the people of Sarawak, especially the voters not to be swayed by the political ploy of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his former deputy Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim under the Pakatan Harapan pact.

He said the people of Sarawak must not forget how Dr Mahathir treated the state and Sarawakians throughout his 22year tenure as prime minister as well as the shoddy treatment by Anwar as deputy prime minister and finance minister.

Awang Tengah said for 22 years as prime minister, Dr Mahathir hardly visited the state and the allocation channelled to the state was meagre compared to the provisions received during the nine years that Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is prime minister.

“For example, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) was supposed to be built earlier than Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) but because of Anwar’s vested political interest, the allocation that was approved for Unimas was transferred to UMS,” he said when officiating the handing over of land title certificates under the new Native Customary Rights (NCR) land and traditional villages initiatives at the Kota Samarahan Civic Centre here yesterday.

Also present were Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate in the 14th General Election (GE14) for the Kota Samarahan parliamentary constituency Rubiah Wang, who is defending her seat and Stakan assemblyman Datuk Seri Mohammad Ali Mahmud.

He said under the initiative, 45 areas covering 23,919 hectares had been surveyed with 7,609 out of the total 19,758 lots being issued with land titles statewide under Section 18 of the State Land Code.

Meanwhile he said the traditional village survey programme was an ongoing effort by the government to ensure the rights of the villagers concerned pertaining to their NCR land.

He said through land surveying, land boundaries became clearly defined to avoid any aggression and dispute.

“In fact, it also dismissed allegations by certain parties claiming to be squatters on their own land,” he said. - Bernama