No schools left in the dark

Sarawak institutions to get generator fuel directly from supplier

KUCHING: Schools in Sarawak which depend on diesel-powered generators for electricity will now get their fuel supply from contractors appointed directly by district education offices.

State Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Datuk Seri Michael Manyin said the Education Department was directed by the Finance Ministry in a letter dated June 20 to purchase diesel for the affected schools.

This comes after several schools faced a diesel shortage when the main contractor, Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd, could not deliver the supplies accordingly.

The RM1.325bil contract awarded to Jepak Holdings to design and build solar hybrid systems, supply diesel and maintain generator sets for 369 schools from 2017 to 2019 is now under investigation by the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission.

“In order to ensure there is no interruption of diesel supply to schools, the state Education Department has been authorised to do direct purchase of diesel of up to RM20,000 per month with a ceiling of RM200,000 for 10 months for each school,” Manyin told the Sarawak Legislative Assembly in his winding-up speech yesterday.

In line with this, he said, district education offices were empowered to appoint suppliers on the basis of one supplier for one school.

The suppliers must be registered with the Finance Ministry and comply with financial procedures and Treasury instructions.

Manyin told reporters later that all the schools should have received the diesel supply as of yesterday.

“(On Monday) there were still some schools not supplied with diesel. As of today (yesterday) I think all the schools have been supplied already. So we hope that for the next 10 months there will be no school left in the dark,” he said.

Manyin also said his ministry submitted a proposal last year for 113 schools located within 10km of the electricity grid to be connected for power supply.

“The estimated cost then was RM50mil. My ministry intends to pursue this further with the Federal Education Ministry to ensure that these schools can enjoy 24-hour electricity,” he said, adding that solar hybrid systems could be considered for the remaining schools which were over 20km away from the grid.