KUCHING, July 5 — A Malay civil society group today appealed to the state government to postpone the tabling of a Bill to amend the Sarawak Land Code at next week’s sitting of the Sarawak State Assembly.
Badan Hak Adat Melayu Sarawak (Baham) president Datuk Dr Sanib Said said Baham is still in the process of gathering information and input to be submitted to the native customary rights (NCR) task force.
He said Baham, which was formed in January this year, did not have a chance to gather information and input for submission to the task force.
“The task force, which was formed in 2017, did not have any representatives from the Malay, Kedayan, Jati Miriek and Vae Segan,” Sanib said in a press statement.
He said the Malay community was only represented in the task force by Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relationship and Project Monitoring Sharifah Hasidah Aman Ghazali, a former deputy state secretary Tan Sri Safri Awang Zaidal and community leader Pemanca Ali Menudin this year.
Sanib said Baham had submitted its claims over NCR land as contained in the document “The Sarawak Malays’ Stand and Claims on the Native Customary Rights (NCR) Issues” to Sharifah Hasidah in May this year for consideration by the task force.
He said Baham was disappointed that its claims were not considered by the task force when drafting the Bill to amend the land code.
“Therefore, we are not satisfied that the amendments to the land code should be tabled at the sitting of the state assembly,” Sanib said, urging that the Bill be withdrawn from the coming sitting of the state assembly.
