Uggah hits the gong to officiate at the launch of GPS Serembu in Kampung Skio. With him on stage are Rentap (second right), Miro (third right), as well as (from left, behind the gong) Henry and John.
BAU: Singapore has indicated its interest to buy prawns, dehydrated ‘terong assam’ (sour brinjals), guava and tilapia fish from Sarawak, says Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah.
According to him, this was made known during the launch of Sarawak Trade and Tourism Office in Singapore recently.
“This serves as another good beginning for our farmers and agropreneurs (and) they should make use of this opportunity.
“Sarawak is already exporting 1,200 live pigs each week to Singapore. We expect the demands to increase soon.
“Now that we have a new market for our prawns, ‘terong assam’, guava and tilapia, we must ensure that we have the constant volume; at the same time, we must not neglect the quality that will allow us to penetrate outside markets,” said the deputy chief minister in officiating at the launch of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) unit for the Serembu state constituency, at Kampung Skio multipurpose hall here on Sunday.
Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development, said both aspects could be realised and ensured through the adoption of high-technology farming methods like fertigation.
In this respect, he advised assemblymen under GPS to come out with suitable programmes in their respective constituencies that would encourage the youths to venture into farming.
According to him, the Sarawak government is in the midst of transforming the agriculture sector through modern farming, aimed at realising the state’s target of becoming a net exporter of food by 2030, in line with the aspiration of Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.
Still, Uggah stressed that this would require the support and participation from all quarters, including the elected representatives.
Later at the function, the deputy chief minister announced the approved grant of RM500,000 for the plantation of ginger, pineapple and baby corn in the area.
He also approved RM100,000 under the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) grant for upgrading works on St Edward’s Catholic Church.
On another matter relating to GPS, Uggah said Abang Johari – who is GPS chairman – had formed the coalition with the objectives of protecting Sarawak’s rights and wealth, as well as charting out the state’s own progress and development.
He regarded Abang Johari’s move of establishing GPS as ‘very brave and visionary’, in that the coalition is not part of the mainstream political system in Malaysia.
“He (Abang Johari) does this to ensure that Sarawak would continue to be governed by local leaders, who actually know and understand it much better than outsiders.”
As such, Uggah called upon the people to give their fullest support to the GPS-led government.
On Serembu, Uggah was confident that it would remain a GPS stronghold and in this regard, he commended assemblyman Miro Simuh for having proven that he is ‘a very good and committed leader’.
“He (Miro) has brought in many development projects meant to benefit the people. Please give him your mandate again in the next state election so he can bring in even more development and progress.”
On Native Customary Rights (NCR) land issue, Uggah said he was glad that Works Minister Baru Bian from the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-led government had agreed that the RM10-million federal allocation should be used for the perimeter survey exercise under Section 6, before moving to Section 18 of the Sarawak Land Code.
He said Section 6 was essentially to decide the status between state and NCR land.
“But some people are accusing us of using Section 6 to rob the owners of their land. Our policy is that we want to ensure what is state land and what is NCR land.
“By using this method, we have managed to declare some 900,000 (hectares) out of the estimated 1.5 million hectares as NCR land in Sarawak, from 2910 until now,” he said.
Layar assemblyman and GPS Youth chief Gerald Rentap, Tasik Biru assemblyman Dato Henry Harry Jinep, and Bukit Semuja assemblyman John Ilus were among those present at the event.