Uggah, who will contest in the Bukit Sabah state seat in the coming state election said what was important currently was to ensure that he and the Sarawak Barisan Nasional achieved victory.

“If I win in the state election and the Sarawak Chief Minister (Adenan) thinks that I should hold a post in the Sarawak cabinet, then I will have to relinquish the (federal) minister’s post because I cannot hold two posts in the federal and state governments,” he told reporters.

Uggah, who is MP for Betong, was appointed plantations minister in 2013.

Uggah represented Adenan in delivering a speech at a development and leadership seminar for community and ethnic heads in Sri Aman Division.

Uggah said the Sarawak Native Customary Rights land issue was no longer political capital for the opposition as the state government had taken measures to recognise and help owners to gazette the NCR land throughout Sarawak.

“The issue had cooled down as the government had carried out the NCR land survey which convinced the NCR land owners that the government had no intention to seize their land.

“To date, the state government had identified 1.5 million hectares of NCR land where 732,000 hectares had been surveyed and 535,000 hectares of NCR land had been gazetted.

In addition, the state government had also issued individual titles to the owners. This clearly showed that the government did not make empty promises but had proven that it was implemented throughout the state,” he said.

– BERNAMA