KUCHING, Oct 26: Stampin MP Chong Chieng Jen has called on the Ministries of Education, Economy, and Works to work together to review the exorbitant school construction costs so that more schools can be rebuilt with the same amount of funding.
Chong explained that a medium-sized rural school costing RM30 million to construct per school is way too high.
“By comparison, SJKC with a capacity of 1,000 students can be built by a contractor appointed by the School Management Board at about RM10 million each. There is just too huge a difference in the costs of construction between the two.
“Therefore, in order that our tax-payers’ money can be put to better use and optimised, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economy, and Ministry of Works should come together to review these extremely high school construction costs so that more schools can be rebuilt with the same amount of allocation,” he said in a statement issued today.
He continued, “The cost of ‘rebuilding’ 11 dilapidated school in Sarawak at the cost of RM368 million is exorbitantly high. That is a shocking average of RM33 million per school.
“That was my comment in Parliament this morning during the question-and-answer session, and I questioned the Ministry about the justification for such high construction costs. I also urged the Ministry of Education to furnish the detailed estimate costing of ‘rebuilding’ these schools.
Chong went on to say that Deputy Education Minister Lim Hui Ying told the Dewan Rakyat today that since 2016, a total of 375 projects of rebuilding dilapidated schools in Sarawak was approved by the Ministry of Education.
“As at Sept 30, 2023, 235 of the projects were completed, 43 were in the midst of construction, and 97 were in the pre-construction stage.”
The Stampin MP also urged the Sarawak Public Works Department (JKR) to expedite the rebuilding of dilapidated schools in the State, as the Federal government has delegated to the State JKR the authority to implement construction projects under RM50 million. — DayakDaily
