Uggah gets ready to cut the ribbon to officiate at the event in Rumah Egang.
MIRI: The Agriculture Department has been asked to investigate a complaint lodged by a local individual, who claims to have received a fake Musang King durian seedling from the department earlier yesterday.
The instruction to probe the complaint was given by Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development.
“I have instructed the Agriculture Department to probe the matter and investigation is in progress,” he told reporters after the ‘Majlis Pemimpin Bersama Rakyat’ event at Rumah Egang, Sungai Selepin here yesterday.
Uggah further said he had received a message from an individual who said the plants that the Agriculture Department had given them were not Musang King durian seedlings.
“After looking at the photos, it was clear that they were not Musang King durian seedlings. So, I asked the Agriculture Department to investigate and make sure that there is no such mistake. We want them to verify each and every seedling that they give.
“It’s very sad because everybody is looking forward to (having) the Musang King variety, but there’s no way for the farmers to know how it (seedling) looks like,” he added.
Uggah also disclosed that this was the first such complaint ever received. “This is a very serious case and we must do investigation,” he stressed.
On another matter, Uggah reassured Sarawakians that the Native Territorial Domain (NTD) under Section 6A of Sarawak Land Code (Amendment) Bill 2018 would not cause the natives to lose ownership of their land.
According to him, the NTD is over and above the right of a native or native community to claim Native Customary Rights (NCR) under Section 5.
“The NCR, recognised from 2010 to 2018, covers 1.3 million hectares and from that figure, 870,000 hectares have been surveyed under perimeter survey (exercise) and 710,000 hectares have been issued with gazette notifications, and this NTD is over and above that figure,” he explained in response to allegations by some parties claiming that the NTD would reduce the NCR.
Uggah also slammed accusations made by several irresponsible quarters, stating that Section 6 of the Land Code was used by the government to take away native land lots. “This is not true. There are also accusations that if the government acquired and used the land, there would be no compensation, which is also not true,” he said.
On the event yesterday, Uggah said it aimed to unite the people in working together with Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), and having a better understanding of Sarawak’s struggles.
“Today, you can see that GPS is very much welcomed based on the impressive turnout. We will continue to explain GPS policies, philosophies and various development programmes that we are implementing,” he added.