PH urged to honour RM1 billion pledge to repair schools

THE Sarawak government is still hoping the Pakatan Harapan ( PH) government will honour the RM1 billion additional allocation approved by the previous Barisan Nasional ( BN) government to address the dilapidated schools issue in Sarawak in 2018 and 2019.

Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin said the allocation was over and above the 11th Malaysia Plan allocation.

“To speed up the rebuilding and upgrading of our schools, the chief minister has also written to Minister of Finance Lim Guan Eng on Aug 1 regarding the government’s offer to lend the federal government RM1 billion so that the problem of dilapidated schools in Sarawak can be addressed speedily.

“However, we have not received any reply from the Minister of Finance yet,” he said during his ministerial winding-up speech yesterday.

Earlier, Manyin told the august House that dilapidated schools were still a major concern in Sarawak.

Although the previous government had spent RM419 million under the 2018 Budget to rebuild and repair dilapidated schools, the amount was only enough to address 116 of the 1,020 dilapidated schools in Sarawak, he said.

He said the contracts to rebuild or repair 66 schools under the Ministry of Education ( MoE) and 50 schools under the Public Works Department (JKR) Sarawak were awarded on Jan 29 and Feb 21 respectively.

“To- date, only 67 schools have been completed and another 49 schools are to be completed by the end of this year.

“However, none of the completed schools have been handed over to the Sarawak Education Department, together with the Certificate of Practical Completion (CPC).

“That is why, in response to the issue raised by Chong Chieng Jen (DAP-Kota Sentosa), our statistics for dilapidated schools remain at 1,020,” he said.

Manyin also said most of the those projects only involved upgrading and partial replacement.

As such, he said in many cases the projects only changed the level of dilapidation of the schools from DS3 to DS2 or DS3 to DS1.

“The overall status of the schools is still categorised as dilapidated.

“For the information of Chong and Wong King Wei ( DAPPadungan), the total number of dilapidated schools remains at 1,020, which is also agreed by the Sarawak Education Department.

“Hence, the distortion of facts and figures with regards to statistics on dilapidated schools by Chong is designed to mislead the people,” he said.

At at press conference later, Manyin reiterated that Sarawak has a total of 1,457 schools, of which 1,020 were considered dilapidated.

“The reason why the number of our dilapidated schools remains at 1,020 schools is because 117 out of 415 schools categorised as critically dilapidated have been partially repaired, but their status still remain as dilapidated,” he said.

Assistant Minister of Education and Technological Research Dr Annuar Rapaee and permanent secretary to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research Datu Sudarsono Osman were also present at the press conference.