After cleaning flood-hit house till 3am, angry Sabah MP slams previous govt

Many houses in Penampang were affected by the floods yesterday. (Facebook pic)

KOTA KINABALU: International Trade and Industry Minister Darell Leiking said the flood problem in his Penampang constituency would have been resolved if the previous government had carried out the mitigation project properly.

Leiking was left fuming after yet another major flash flood hit Penampang and other lowland areas in the Sabah west coast yesterday.

He said he had to clean his house until 3am because of the floods.

“I had always complained about this when I was an opposition MP then.

“Now, I am in the government. I have found out that the previous government had actually approved a flood mitigation project in Penampang as well as the whole of Sabah.

“But I don’t know how they spent the money. When we went to the ground to check, something had been done but it was done half-way,” he told reporters after attending the Malaysia-China Smart Manufacturing Roundtable at the Marriott Hotel here today.

He suspected there could have been a misuse of funds, including by contractors, resulting in the project not delivering what was promised.

Under the 11th Malaysia Plan, the previous federal government had allocated RM760 million for flood mitigation projects, with Penampang receiving RM281 million for flood mitigation in the Moyog Basin.

This was where, he said, China could help. Malaysia, he added, could learn from China how to find an effective solution to the flood problem.

“This would be one of the many things we want to work with them.”

He said he would ask federal Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Dr Xavier Jayakumar and state Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Junz Wong, who are both in charge of irrigation and drainage, to maybe learn from China how they resolve such problems. - FMT