STAKING THEIR CLAIMS: Dominic points at the map of the land over which residents are claiming NCR rights.
KUCHING: The people in four Bidayuh villages in Singai have chosen not to have politicians meddle in their current native customary rights (NCR) claims.
Chairman of their NCR land taskforce Dominic Daon said the people in Bobak Tengah, Bobak Sajong, Daun and Segong prefer to pursue the matter through the proper channel.
He said this was due to past experiences with politicians who promised to help but did nothing.
“We don’t want politicians to come in. We don’t like to see them playing up the issue for their own benefit,” he said when met recently.
Dominic, a retired civil servant, said the NCR land taskforce committee was set up to make NCR claims on the 11,370 acres of land at Matang range, near these villages.
He said the land was gazetted by the government under ‘Gazette number 664’ on March 3, 1977 for ‘future development’, but the villagers did not know until they found out about this recently, he claimed.
The people need the land for their farming activities and village expansion.
“If the land is not ‘returned’ to us, where else can we go?” he asked, adding that trees planted in the disputed area prove that the Bidayuh in Singai settled in the area since hundreds of years ago.
He said the committee had already met four times, and they would meet again at 2.30pm tomorrow.
“There are about 650 households in the four villages who can claim NCR rights over that land.
“If the land is given back to us by the government, we can go on with the NCR perimeter survey in that area,” he said, hoping the government would consider the grievances of the people there.