SIBU, July 23: Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) was unable to fulfill its plans to build two wet markets and a food court due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, but was able to upgrade 60 per cent of the roads under its jurisdiction.
Chairman Clarence Ting said the two wet markets were the Sungai Merah market and Jalan Tiong Hua market while the food court was the one located in Taman Muhibbah.
“We were supposed to complete these three projects early this year but we could not do it due to the Movement Control Order (MCO),” he said.
As for the road, he said they had completed 60 per cent of the repair works, excluding the tarring.
“I told my staff that we have only four months left for this year to complete this year’s tasks. We had asked the staff to make sure that we have finished all our projects for this year that we had budgeted for,” he said.
He however said that it would be an uphill task for the council to finish all projects in four months’ time.
“But we still intend to do cleaning-up of the drains. We are not much behind in this but as for roads and hawker centres, we have not started. This is the cause of the pandemic,” he said.
On compulsory vaccination of hawkers, he said most of them had done so.
He told reporters this after attending a swearing-in ceremony for the councillors new term of office today. The swearing-in ceremony via Zoom involved 758 councillors from the 24 councils in the state and was officiated by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.
A total of 32 councillors from SMC participated in the swearing-in ceremony. — DayakDaily
