A SARAWAK minister has warned Pos Malaysia that he would be forced to declare the general post office in Kuching a heritage building if the postal service provider continued to delay returning the 92-year-old building to the state.

State Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the building could be next to worthless for Pos Malaysia once declared a heritage building under the Sarawak Heritage Ordinance 2019.

Pos Malaysia would also have its hands tied if it planned to renovate the building, he added. 

The building comes under the purview of the Sarawak Museum director once it is designated a heritage building and the director will then issue a “Notice to preserve”, which requires a permit for any demolition, dismantling, or altering. 

Sarawak had spent a good part of the decade in negotiations to have the building, located in the city centre on Jalan Tun Haji Openg, under its control. 

The building, which has been in continuous use as the general post office since its completion in 1931, is the only building in Sarawak to employ the use of Corinthian columns in its facade, along with semi-circular arches and ornamented column capitals and friezes.

“This is one of the landed properties we want back,” Karim said when asked by reporters if the building was among the 54 plots of landed property that the federal government had agreed to return to the state under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63)-linked settlement thrashed out earlier this year. 

He said if the talks become too protracted, “I will just impose under (the) heritage (law) and we will take it back”. 

Sources told The Malaysian Insight that the sticking point was Pos Malaysia’s “astronomical” compensation demand, which the state refused to pay. 

When Malaysia was formed in 1963, the building was taken over by the federal government as the postal service was under federal purview. 

When Pos Malaysia Bhd was incorporated in 1992, the building was passed over to them. 

Yesterday, Deputy Chief Minister Awang Tengah Ali Hassan – after meeting the Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad – disclosed the federal government’s agreement to return 54 out of 218 plots of land leased to it but never utilised for their intended purposes. 

Karim, who is a member of Sarawak’s MA63 negotiating team for the return of the land, said the April Special Council meeting of the Malaysia Agreement agreed that land that had not been developed or occupied for more than five years would have to be returned to the state. 

He said some of the land had not been developed for more than 20 years. 

Karim even said land was not returned after federal ministries or agencies backed down on their plans. 

He pointed to the police as “a very good” example. 

The police had requested for land to build the new state contingent headquarters and they were given “a large piece” of it adjacent to the Sarawak sports complex in Petrajaya. 

Currently the contingent headquarters is at Jalan Badruddin. 

“After it was alienated, the police decided not to move. They cannot have two bites at an apple.” – July 12, 2023.