KUCHING, June 13: Sarawak Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chong Chieng Jen is urging the state government to look seriously into the upgrading of dilapidated schools around Kuching, Kota Samarahan and Bau, some of which are said to be 85 per cent behind schedule.
Referring to the news published by local daily The Borneo Post yesterday, he said he had issued a statement shortly after the announcement of this RM21.6 million project earlier this year that the Industrialised Building System (IBS) was not suitable for this project because the system was for large-scale standardised buildings.
“Each and every school in the rural areas would have to be built-to-design. As such, the use of IBS may not be suitable,” Chong told a press conference this morning.
The Borneo Post report yesterday revealed that some of these projects were barely 15 per cent done when they were supposed to have been fully completed.
The project was scheduled to start on Feb 26 this year and completed by May 27 this year.
Director-general of the Implementation and Co-ordination Unit (ICU) in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Ahmad Zaki Ansore, told the English daily that the projects were awarded to a company via a package costing RM21.6 million.
Zaki, who was visibly upset by the poor progress, blamed the whole fiasco on the contractor’s poor management.
Besides the delay, Chong claimed there were also complaints from villagers that their village roads had been damaged by lorries laden with IBS materials.
“This is to be expected because IBS materials are pre-cast concrete delivered on site that would involve heavy loads on lorries, and village roads are not built for such weightage.
“So, I call upon the government to seriously look into this matter. After all, the project is under the purview of the Sarawak Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research. It seems that the contractors awarded the project could not deliver, and the system used is not suitable,” said Chong. — DayakDaily
