Where are promised project reports, Fadillah asks Penang govt
BAYAN LEPAS: Where are the promised reports for the Penang Tunnel and the three main road projects, Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof asked the Penang government yesterday.
Fadillah said during the last meeting in March with the state government, project contractor and its consultant, the ministry was told that the reports would be submitted by last month.
The reports include Land Survey, Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment, Quantity Survey, Flood and Drainage
Study, Civil, Structural and Geotechnical, Land/Highway Tunnel, Architectural, Mechanical and Electrical, Project Management, Social Impact Study, Traffic Impact Study, Financial Feasibility and Funding Management, Hydraulic study, Marine Study and Undersea Tunnel.
Fadillah said the ministry had yet to receive the reports.
“We are at the end of July and we have yet to receive any reports from them. This is not the first time they are delayed as they had previously promised to give them in December.
“This is their project. We cannot put a deadline for the submission.
“But, since they promised, I wonder what happened,” he said during a site visit here in conjunction with the northern zone FTRoadpedia tour series yesterday.
The Penang government had proposed the undersea tunnel project as it claimed that the ministry had refused to give approval for a third bridge linking Gurney Drive on the island to Bagan Ajam in northern Seberang Prai.
It had claimed that it submitted a letter to obtain approval, but the ministry wanted the full reports to be submitted before it gave its approval.
The project is one of the fourphase long-term plans to ease traffic congestion in the state.
State Public Works Committee chairman Lim Hock Seng, however, refuted Fadillah’s claim that the report was supposed to be submitted by last month.
“I think the minister is losing his memory as we told him that the studies for the tunnel would be submitted by September. Why is he harping on June?”