KUCHING: State DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen said yesterday that Pakatan Rakyat’s pledge to expand the Pan Borneo highway within five years if it came to power in the May 5 general election is not an empty promise.
He said he found it amusing for his opponent in Bandar Kuching, Tan Kai, to label the pledge as something “impossible” to implement over such a short period of time.
“They (SUPP) admit that they are not able to do it in five years, and this goes to show their incompetency. In fact, they could not build a proper highway in 50 years, so a five-year target does sound unbelievable to them,” Chong told a press conference here yesterday.
Chong said BN would normally implement such a project by awarding it to one or two contractors, but Pakatan would take a different approach.
“We are going to divide the over 1,000km construction work among at least 80 contractors so that each of them takes care of 10km or so of work only. Hence, we dare to take up this challenge.”
Chong also took a dig at the Jalan Song flyover project, which he said was built at a ‘snail-pace speed.’
“The Works Ministry promised to fully complete the flyover by March 26, but it is now already April 27. A month has gone by yet there are still pieces of iron on it that rattle whenever cars drive past.
On another matter, Chong, who is also Kota Sentosa assmeblyman, called on DAP supporters to sign up as polling and counting agents as the party was in a dire need of such help.
He said there were at least 4,000 advance voters in Stampin and 2,000 in Bandar Kuching who were expected to cast their ballot on April 30.
“We realise that April 30 is a Tuesday and a working day, so we are short of polling agents. I call on our supporters to come forward.
“Every vote is crucial for us and we need more polling and counting agents on May 5. At the moment, we are very short of volunteers.” #myvote13 #ge13