The date 14 December 2021 is deemed as a historical day for Sri Aman as sub-district Pantu and Lingga were both elevated to district level.
During a recent interview with the Sri Aman District Officer, Mohd. Ashree Wee, commented that the upgrading of both sub-districts to full district levels will bring various benefits and development especially on the infrastructures and socio-economic of the local community.
The benefits include;
- Strengthen administrative management under the same administration
- Accelerate rural socio-economic development in a holistic and comprehensive manner
- Develop rural trade centres such as Pantu, Balai Ringin, Sungai Tenggang and Lachau
- Bringing various services such as banking, health, sports, municipal services closer to the people
- Stimulate economic growth
- Facilitate the planning, implementation and monitoring as well as evaluation of project development by implementing agencies
- Establishment of sub-districts of the new districts will increase government funding in terms of management and development
Among the impacts that the newly elevated district will experience includes the increase of total area and the number of villages under their respective administration.
| District | Total area (Before) (sq. km2) | Total area (After) (sq. km2) |
| Sri Aman | 2323.0 | 1174.0 |
| Pantu | 734.2 | 761.0 |
| Lingga | 263.9 | 620.0 |
(Source: Sri Aman District Office)
| District | No. of villages (Before) | No. of villages (After) |
| Sri Aman | 243 | 187 |
| Pantu | 122 | 140 |
| Lingga | 42 | 98 |
(Source: Sri Aman District Office)
In line with the upgrading to Pantu and Lingga to district level, the State Government is planning to build new administration complex.
“With the establishment of the administration complex, we hoped to provide a better service delivery and also to strengthen the relationship between the people with the Government,” said Mohd. Ashwee adding that this would also bring more employment opportunities to graduates.
During a trip to Lingga, RAKAN Sarawak met husband and wife, Augustine Ak Bana and Jacklyn Ak Achang.
According to Jacklyn whose hometown is at Langgir, Lingga, she has not set foot in her hometown for about 10 years as the road and connectivity has always been an obstacle for her.
“For us to go back to our longhouse, we need to use boat as our mode of transportation,” she said adding that this is the case for most people in Lingga.
“Sometimes, if the water level is too low, we need to wait for an hour for the water level to rise or sometimes we need to spend the night at Sri Aman or Lingga town,” she added.
Explaining more, as boat is their main mode of transportation, it would also be a challenge when they have to transport huge number of things back to their longhouse.
“As Lingga has now been upgraded to district level, I hoped that more development would come to and in the future, we hoped that there would be road connecting to our village so that we do not need to use boat anymore,” she said.
RAKAN Sarawak also met with husband and wife, Nelson Ak Gani and Nancy Ak Kayan from Isu, Pantu, who expressed their hope for more development coming to the new district area.
“With Pantu being elevated to district level, we hoped to see more secondary schools and hospital built within the area,” said Nelson.
According to Nancy, most of the youths attend secondary schools in Sri Aman which is about 40 minutes away from Pantu. Adding more, Nancy said that she hoped to see more proper roads connecting to the villages within Pantu area as some of the roads are still not properly tarred.
