Christopher Gira Sambang
KUCHING: A government backbencher has called on the state government to accelerate the pace of high impact development projects for people in the rural areas next year due to the limited support in terms of funding from Putrajaya.
Tamin assemblyman Christopher Gira Sambang said the projects includes the second trunk road, coastal road, the projects under the Regional Corridor Development Authority, and projects under the Integrated Regional Samarahan Development Agency.
“In the 2020 federal budget, Sarawak was approved an allocation of RM4.4 billion out of RM56 billion development fund, therefore we cannot put much hope in terms of financial assistance.
“Hence, the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) state government needs to accelerate the pace of development in rural areas with the implementation of high impact projects in 2020,” he told the august House in his 2020 State Budget debate speech.
Gira also said the state government has always recognised the rights of the natives over their land, having embarked on the new initiative native customary rights (NCR) land survey programme and amended the Sarawak Land Code to recognise the usufructuary right over native territorial domain.
He added that under the new initiative survey, a total of 52,000 hectares of NCR land have been surveyed with 15,000 hectares surveyed as individual lots.
Gira also lauded the move by the state government to provide special financial assistance of RM300 per month for five months to fishermen besides giving them fishing equipment.
However, he appealed to the state government to provide similar assistance to smallholding oil palm planters during the Landas season.