36 minutes
KUCHING: The Sarawak Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture will not gazette any old privately-owned building in the state as a heritage site without the prior consent of its owner.
Its minister, Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah today said although the State Heritage Ordinance was passed by the State Legislative Assembly last year to allow old buildings to be gazetted as heritage buildings, the state government still respected the rights of owners on their properties.
“We cannot arbitrarily gazette any old privately-owned building as a heritage building, that is why you may have seen some buildings involved being renovated work by their owners,“ he told reporters after officiating the Kuching Old Bazaar Promotion and Cultural Mapping Programme at Harmony Arch, Jalan Carpenter, here.
According to Abdul Karim, since the ordinance came into force, the state government had gazetted several historical buildings owned by the government, apart from which, the ordinance also allows the government to gazette any area in the state as a heritage area.
“Currently, we have gazetted Margherita Fortress, Astana, Old Court House (in this city) and other old forts around Sarawak (as heritage buildings),“ he said, adding that his ministry was also in talks with a homeowner in a village here to gazette it as a heritage building.
— Bernama
