KOTA KINABALU: Sabah works minister Bung Moktar Radin has lamented the sheer amount of heavy tasks his ministry has to shoulder, describing it as carrying a live “biawak” (monitor lizard).
Bung, who is also deputy chief minister, said the state ministry was quite unique as it had to look after responsibilities like maintaining roads, water services, sewerage, electricity and train services, among others.
In the peninsula, he said, each of these were managed by different departments or ministries.
“In Sabah, though, they are all grouped into one ministry – that is the burden I have to carry,” he said, during his winding-up speech at the state assembly tonight.
With so many tasks, he said, the people tend to get confused and assume some tasks such as looking after drains fell under his ministry too.
“In the end, people will always blame the works minister (if anything goes wrong).”
While congratulating the chief minister for tabling a surplus budget, Bung, who is Lamag assemblyman, said the RM244.97 million allocation to his ministry was hardly sufficient.
He said his first priority was the construction of roads, particularly the uncompleted packages of the Pan Borneo Highway project, and addressing Sabah’s water problems.
“To be honest, we need RM27 billion to upgrade the water services throughout the state but the state government can’t afford that while the federal government will probably not help.
“One step forward leads to a thousand steps ahead,” Bung said. - FMT
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