KUCHING: Frustration is mounting among road users in Bau over the deplorable condition of several roads in the district.
Secretary of PKR Mas Gading branch, Francis Teron Kadap, said the road users were wondering what was holding back the Public Works Department (PWD) from ordering immediate repair works to damaged roads in the district.
“A company within the CMS Group has been awarded a 15-year concession to undertake repair and maintenance works on all state and federal roads in the state in 2003. Since there is already a contract in place, it is simply a matter of identifying the damaged stretches and issuing work orders to the contractor.
“It is understood that the damaged stretches are already in PWD’s list of roads to be repaired. As the works are mostly small-scale repairs to damaged stretches the delay cannot be due to the high cost,” he told a press conference on Tuesday.
Francis said funding was in fact not a problem, particularly since the government’s additional revenue from goods and
services tax (GST) was reported to be in the region of RM1.7 billion in the third week of May, slightly more than a month after the GST was implemented.
He added that said road users from Singgai who used Sungei Tengah road to commute to their workplaces were particularly annoyed by the road condition which had been in deplorable state for almost two years now.
“The damaged stretches along the road (Sungei Tengah) have been ‘marked’ suggesting that repairs and maintenance works are forthcoming, but have not commenced.”
He said the frustrated road users were calling on PWD and Minister of Infrastructure Development and Communications Dato Sri Michael Manyin to ensure that the repair works were carried out immediately.
They also said those roads were all without lighting and the damaged stretches were potential death traps at night.
Francis said many other roads in the area were in similar condition, citing Jalan Kendaie as one of them.
He said the residents of Kpg Kendaie and Kpg Pasir were frustrated with the condition of their gravel road, the only access road connecting their villages to the Lundu/Biawak main road.
“A large number of big trucks carrying oil palm fresh fruit bunches from the plantation to the mill are causing the road to be perpetually in bad condition. During the rainy season, the road is barely passable.”
Francis said it would appear that this road was listed for upgrading in the Eighth Malaysia Plan (2001 to 2005) and should have been included in the rolling plan in 2002 but until today, the road was still in the same condition as it was in 2001.
“Opar assemblyman Ranum Mina has brought up the issue of Jalan Kendaie in at least two State Legislative Assembly sittings, the first one in the May 2012 sitting.
In April 2015, Mas Gading MP Anthony Nogeh Gumbek, promised the villagers along Jalan Kendaie that he would
lobby for the road upgrading works in the 11th Malaysia Plan.”
The villagers said they were ardent supporters of the government and never failed to deliver handsome wins to BN in all past elections. They were now demanding that the BN returned the favour and to include their road in the 2016 rolling plan of the 10th Malaysia Plan.
When contacted, the PWD director Zuraimi Sabki told The Borneo Post that he would check on these comments.-Borneo Post
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