KUCHING, Dec 31: The Sarawak Transport Ministry is expecting a busy year this 2020, especially with Kuching being one of the five cities in Malaysia selected for the State Bus Service Transformation (SBST).
Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin said the implementation of SBST in Kuching under a consortium of bus companies will be one of the projects in 2020.
“As a newly established ministry, it has been tasked with a strategic role in planning and implementing an integrated, reliable, affordable, safe and eco-friendly public transportation system. We will work very closely with the relevant stakeholders by establishing the Sarawak Public Transportation committee where the members will consist of relevant departments, agencies and those from the transportation industry.
“I shall form the committee officially in the beginning of 2020. The committee is to seek the views and obtain feedbacks from the various transportation stakeholders which will be useful in our planning and implementation of Sarawak public transportation. Traffic studies, the drawing up of master plans and the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project are some of the priority areas,” Lee said in his New Year message.
For the year 2020, Lee also asserted that it was crucial for every Sarawakian to continue to strengthen the spirit of unity and solidarity to safeguard the rights, interests and privileges of the state.
“We should act in unison to ensure that the rights and privileges that belong to Sarawak as stipulated in the Malaysia Agreement 1963, the Cobbold Commission, Inter-Government Committee Report, the Sarawak Constitution and relevant legislations and the Federal Constitution are duly respected and honoured in letter and spirit by the Federal Government and any of those which have been taken away or eroded should be duly restored,” he added.
It was also his fervent hope that Sarawak would be able to regain and restore all those rights belonging to Sarawak as well as on the devolution of power in the ongoing deliberations with the Federal Government which started more than a year ago.
“A blessed and happy New Year 2020 to everyone. May Sarawak continue to be blessed with a dynamic, people centric and stable government where unity, peace, harmony, mutual respect and understanding will always prevail among its people of various races, cultures and religions,” Lee said. —DayakDaily
