Sacofa on track to erect 600 telco towers this year

A Quick Response (QR) code on a smartphone. — DayakDaily.com

By Wilfred Pilo

KUCHING, Jan 6: Sacofa Sdn Bhd said it is on track to build 600 telecommunication towers under Phase One of an initiative to build 5,000 such towers in the state.

Its managing director, Zaid Zaini, said Sacofa was working closely with the Sarawak government on this matter, and they had successfully conducted one tender for the project.

“The outcome of this tender will allow them to start this year,” he told reporters after handing over their contributions amounting to RM252,810 to 13 selected schools. The money was raised from Sacofa’s ‘Connecting with the community’ Run 2019.

“For a start, our focus will be the rural areas to narrow the gap on Internet services between the urban and rural areas.”

However, Zaid said one of the main challenges they would be facing in building these telecommunication towers was the tough and uneven geographical terrain of Sarawak.

“But we are not worried as we have more than 20 years of experience in this field, and we have very experienced contractors.”

He said Sacofa had faced this kind of challenge before in Telok Melano, where they had to use boats to move around.

Last year, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg announced a RM1 billion allocation for the building of telecommunication towers to speed up the state’s digital economy agenda. — DayakDaily