Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah
KUCHING: Budget 2019, the first federal budget by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government tabled by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has no mention of the survey of Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands in Sarawak.
Speaking to The Borneo Post on the matter, Deputy Chief MInister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas lamented that the development would be disappointing for Sarawak natives but added that he would have to read the budget details to see if there is anything for Sarawak natives or specific programmes for Sarawak farmers.
“Nothing on survey of lands, I don’t think there is any. We also don’t know whether they are not mentioning any subsidy for rubber and pepper. I don’t know why, (the budget) is not very clear,” Uggah, whom is also Sarawak’s Minister of Agriculture Modernisation, Native Land and Regional Development, lamented.
To get clearer picture on the allocation for Sarawak natives in 2018 and what is allocated for 2019, it is best to compare the two budgets, said Uggah.
“We have to compare budget this year and last year,” he said, adding that he will have to analyse the Budget 2019.
Uggah stressed that he is frustrated by the generalisation of allocation for Sarawak as Lim was saying the amount allocated for Sarawak will be increased to RM4,346 millions in 2019 compare to RM4,336 millions in 2018.
“We are very disappointed there is no clear direction on the support programme other than social safety net for the rubber. Other than that, there is no clear programme, subsidies for other crops (like rubber, pepper, oil palm etc) unless we didn’t see it,” he said.
According to Uggah, what hurt the most is that the budget had nothing on the NCR land programme.
Under the previous government, the progamme saw the disbursement of large amounts of funds for perimeter survey works and land development programme for rural farmers in Sarawak.
“Nothing on the land, which is very disappointing for the natives, our farmers are very disappointed.
“For Sarawak they only give a general figure (RM4,346 million) but that may be only for Pan Borneo,” he said.
In fact, Uggah believed the RM50 millions allocation for rubber safety nets (for whole of Malaysia) will not be sufficient.
“At one time, we gave a RM500 one off assistance to every rubber plantation smallholder and that cost us over RM30 millions because we have about 75,000 smallholders in Sarawak,” he explained.