Sri Aman hospital: 9 years for earthworks?

Prime Minister Najib had promised to give Sri Aman a new RM200 million hospital, but all that locals have seen are abandoned signs of earth filling.

KUCHING: Sarawak’s Rural Development Assistant Minister Francis Harden has come under attack for his ‘ignorance’ over the Sri Aman hospital construction issue.

Harden’s insistence that the hospital was an “ongoing” project has only made him look like a fool, said Sri Aman DAP branch chief Leon Jimat Donald.

Refering to Harden’s recent statement accusing DAP of  “seeking cheap publicity” by raising the hopistal issue, Donald said it was clear that the assemblyman ‘extremely oblivious’ to the ongound realities surrounding the project.

“I have been informed by reliable sources undertaking the earthworks that only 14 acres (5.7 hectares) of the 50 acres (20.3 hectares) allocated for the project has been filled with earth.

“We wish to ask (Datuk) Francis Harden why the earthworks only done for 14 acres only when he said it was completed?

“Fourteen acres constitutes only 28 percent of the total development area after 3 years of ‘works’.  What is going to be done to the remaining 72 percent of the area, which is jungle and still swampy?

“When is the government going to do the remaining earthworks and start the real construction of the hospital?” Donald asked in a statement here.

A new Sri Aman hospital was one of the projects announced during the walkabout by Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2011.

The RM200 million project was reported to be implemented in two phases and scheduled to be completed by October 2016.

The project was in response to the request from the Sri Aman people to replace the present hospital, which had been in use since 1959 and could no longer handle present demands.

“Judging from their current track record, it takes them 3 years to earth fill 28 percent of the development area of the new hospital; then it is safe to say that it will now take another 6 years to wait for the rest of the area to be successfully earth filled?

“And we are not even addressing the real construction of the hospital yet!

“Apparently the honorable assistant minister and our Sri Aman MP hasn’t the faintest idea about the development of the new hospital,” said Donald, who is also DAP Sarawak vice-chairman.

‘Sick’ project

The MP for Sri Aman is Masir Kujat, who defended his seat by beating PKR’s Nicholas Mujah in last year’s general elections.

Last week, Donald visited the site and reportedly described the hospital project as “sick”.

He was stunned to discover nothing had changed since the project’s announcement.

“The site is apparently abandoned, judging by the condition of the gate into the area that has collapsed and the signage nearly covered by crawling vines.

“It is indeed an extremely painful wait for the people of Sri Aman yet again; the dream of a new modern hospital to service and care for them,” he said then.

He also alleged that the elected representatives in Sri Aman seemed to be doing nothing about the issue.

On Monday, Harden,  who is Simanggang assemblyman denied the project was “sick” adding that current earth filling and site preparations were going on.

He also stated that the works to build the hospital’s structure would be tendered out soon.