Govt criticised for not letting local contractors fully undertake highway project

KLIAS assemblyman Datuk Seri Panglima Lajim Ukin yesterday criticised the government for not appointing local contractors for all the packages under the Pan Borneo Highway project.

He said the 1,663 kilometres that stretched from Sabah to Sarawak would be constructed in 35 packages for the first phase.

“When the launching of the first phase was announced, it was emphasized that the project would involve 100 per cent local contractors.”

However, Lajim said only 14 local contractors were qualified and met the criteria of the 35 packages.

“This means that more than half of the project, or 21 packages, have to be carried out in collaboration with non-Sabah based contractors.”

Hence, Lajim, who is also Sabah opposition leader, said the announcement to appoint all local contractors were just promises to please the people.

Additionally, he said the sixth package spanning 19.1 kilometres from Ketiau to Inanam, worth RM900 million, was launched last Saturday even though the first to fifth packages had yet to be completed.

“Like previous launchings, the Pan Borneo Highway has once again become a rhetoric to show the federal Barisan Nasional’s (BN) concern on the infrastructure development in Sabah.

“The sixth package was said to be a national transformation to narrow the gap between West Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.

“This is an admission of the imbalanced development between Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia,” he said when debating the State Budget 2018 in the State Legislative Assembly yesterday.

On another note, Lajim said the RM595.8 million allocated under the state budget to the Sabah Water Department was insufficient to resolve the water supply issue in the state.

“The prevailing water supply issue has seemingly become something for the BN to show its concern to the rakyat by distributing blue water tanks in each election.”

Apart from clean water supply, he said Sabahans had yet to fully enjoy the electricity provided.

He said close to 600,000 users had registered with Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd ( SESB), 500,000 of whom were residential users.

“With Sabah’s population exceeding 3.9 million, about 1.4 million are still waiting to enjoy electricity supply.”

Lajim urged the government to ensure the electricity tariff was maintained in 2018, given that the tariff was revised on January 1, 2014 and also because Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) had raked in RM7.32 billion in profit after tax in 2016.

Lajim also voiced out the rising unemployment rate in Sabah, which has increased from 4.6 per cent in 2014 to 4.7 per cent in 2015 and 5.4 per cent in 2016.

“This is higher than the unemployment rate in other states in West Malaysia and Sarawak.”

On another matter, Lajim said a study on the construction of the bridge connecting Labuan to mainland Sabah had been done by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) with an allocation of RM1 million in 2010.

He said the result of the study had been submitted to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) for a more detailed study but now the EPU was reportedly going to be allocated another RM14.31 million to pay consultants for the same study.

Lajim said former Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Salleh had also regretted signing the agreement to hand over Labuan in 1984, claiming that the latter had been cheated by the federal government’s promises to develop the island.