KOTA KINABALU: The federal government has been urged to provide sufficient funding to the Sabah Public Works Department (PWD) to repair road slopes.
STAR Sabah chief Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, who made the call yesterday, said landslides affecting major roads in Sabah were not a surprise whenever there was a heavy rain.
He claimed that the Sabah PWD had been requesting for federal funds since 2009 for repairing 647 road slope failures.
“It is sad that Sabahans have to bear the brunt of the landslides and failure of the road slopes due to the failure of the federal government to provide sufficient funding for Sabah PWD,” he said when commenting on roads being cut off in Penampang-Tambunan, Tamparuli-Kiulu and Tuaran-Topokon due to landslides two days ago.
In 2009, Sabah PWD deputy director reported that RM920 million was needed to rectify 647 road slope failures, of which 517 were on roads under the state administration while the rest have been identified on roads under federal administration.
In September 2013, the PWD director reported that RM2 billion was needed for the backlog of road repairs and another RM700 million for repairs and upgrading of 62 bridges.
Jeffrey said in both cases, there appeared to be no news not even promises of funding by the federal government and Sabahans have to put up with the road and road slope failures.
“It was reported that until 2007 the Sabah government suffered losses of RM2.55 billion due to the landslides. The losses by the people and businesses is probably many times over,” he said.