Inspection of slopes along federal roads stopped since 2013 - audit report

The routine maintenance inspection of slopes along federal roads in the peninsula has not been carried out over the past seven years due to financial constraints, according to the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 Series 3.

The report said the Slope Engineering Branch (CKC) under the Public Works Department is required to carry out routine maintenance inspection of slopes at least once or twice a year, depending on the level of danger and risk.

“The inspection must be carried out to determine the slope failure prevention work. The audit found that routine inspections were carried out from 2007 to 2012, but were discontinued by the CKC director on April 2013 due to financial constraint,” it said.

According to the report, which was tabled in Parliament today, there were 946 very high-risk slopes along the federal roads as of 2010 with prevention scopes divided into soil slope and rock slope.

The audit team was informed that the CKC had planned to carry out slope failure prevention works for all the 946 slopes with the total cost of RM200 million for the period of 2018 to 2020.

Pahang has the highest number of high-risk slopes at 276, followed by Perak (176) and Kelantan (105).

The audit also mentioned that in 2018, the slope failure prevention words had only been carried out on 56 or 5.9 percent of the 946 slopes.

“This situation will pose a higher risk to the safety of road users,” said the report.

The audit team proposed the need for detailed guidelines to increase slope management efficiency and also for a review on the performance of contractors appointed to carry out upgrading and slope failure preventive works.

- Bernama