KOTA KINABALU: Sabah deputy chief minister Bung Moktar Radin has slammed the state finance ministry for withdrawing all powers from the Public Works Department (JKR) to supervise roads in the state.
The power, instead, has been transferred to the state finance ministry, which unlike JKR, has no engineers. Bung said this was very “strange”.
“As the minister (of public works), I am not satisfied with what the finance ministry has done in relation to the awarding of road upgrading works to city and district councils,” he said when met today.
Bung said that in 2016, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission asked the Sabah finance ministry to hand over engineering and technical supervision to JKR as it was the relevant department to handle such matters.
He said Sabah JKR was then appointed as the project director to oversee road maintenance work in the city and district councils from 2017 to 2020, and had maintained 8,165km of roads during that period.
“Unfortunately, the Sabah finance ministry also issued a letter on the 28th or 29th of last month withdrawing all of JKR’s powers and transferring them to the finance minister to supervise these roads,” he said.
“I didn’t even know that the finance ministry and local governments have engineers who are experts or are knowledgeable in road matters,” he said.
Bung said people were angry with the quality of roads in the state, adding that the transfer of power should have been discussed in more detail.
Bung also said the ministry’s action could provoke the anger of the rakyat and lead to a change of government in the future.
“I want to voice this out so the Sabah finance ministry can see that this is for the good of the rakyat. We cannot deny the voice of the rakyat,” he said.
“People change governments because they are bored, the actions of the government are wrong or there is no focus on the problems faced by the rakyat,” he said. - FMT
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