SRI AMAN: The tender for the long-awaited construction of new Sri Aman Division Hospital will be open next month, said Assistant Minister of Rural Development Datuk Francis Harden Hollis.
He revealed the hospital would be constructed this year, and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had indicated his intention to see for himself the construction progress in Sri Aman.
“With the opening of the tender, the much needed hospital that the people here have been dreaming of will become a reality,” he said at
the outreach programme by State Federal Secretary and State Federal Departments at Rumah Along, Entebar, Batu Lintang Undop near here yesterday.
Harden who is also Simanggang assemblyman and Assistant Minister of Housing said that the Prime Minister announced the allocation of RM200 million to develop the new hospital when he was in Sri Aman for a walkabout during the 2011 election.
“During the 2011 election, the Prime Minister himself came to Sri Aman and saw for himself the condition of the existing hospital and at the same time announced the allocation. This is not merely an election promise because the site for the new hospital, next to the Sri Aman Division Federal Office, had been identified.”
He added that the building of the new hospital will not be used as an issue by the opposition to twist the facts that the new hospital is not developed.
“I was told by the Prime Minister’s Office that the Prime Minister will be in Sri Aman in February to look at the progress of the construction. This is not an election gimmick, but a reality. We hope to see some physical works on the hospital before the next state election.”
Thus, he hopes the people here will be patient while the construction is going on, and not be swayed by propaganda spread by the opposition against the hospital.
Meanwhile, a total of 20 federal government agencies took part in the outreach programme.
The main objective of the programme was to channel the government’s policy to the rural folks and to explain and solve the people’s problem by going to the ground.