Back to square one

4

Recent solution to SMK Katibas’ power and water woes was good for about a month only

SMK Katibas.

SMK Katibas.

BAT-V-LOGO2SONG: The situation in SMK Katibas has reverted to its miserable state, barely a month after the issue of lack of power and water was said to have been addressed.

Students of this boarding school now survive on two 500ml of bottled drinking water each day, rationed by the school. Longhouse headman Jabu Braok, from Ulu Katibas, claimed these two bottles of water were insufficient for his granddaughter, a Form 2 student of SMK Katibas. It gets worse for his granddaughter when there are extra co-curriculum activities.

“Water is still a problem in SMK Katibas. This is the situation that she had to endure for the last two months.

“It is quite hard for many children, but since they wanted to study, they remained in the school,” Jabu told the BAT 5 team when met at a local coffeeshop yesterday.

On April 24, the last of four generators powering SMK Katibas – a boarding school located about an hour’s boat ride from Song town – broke down. Since that day, the school was not only plunged into total darkness whenever the sun sets, but it had no clean water supply as the water pumps needed electricity to work. Without electricity and water, SMK Katibas’ student population dwindled from 350 to 20 on May 8 because the students preferred to stay home in their longhouses rather than attend school.

After the issue was highlighted in The Borneo Post, Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah responded by explaining that the whole situation should not have happened as the government had given a contractor, Icon Enterprises Sdn Bhd, RM21 million to maintain the generators of 14 schools in Katibas including SMK Katibas.

The contract period is from from Jan 1, 2015, to Dec 31, 2016, and the contractor was duly informed of the electricity supply failure on April 28 and 30.

The Education Department then instructed the company to take action to ensure no interruption of power supply and to repair the broken generators. The contractor, however, did not budge.

The Education Department then instructed the Education District Officer and the principal to identify companies in Song or Sibu to rent generators as a temporary measure to solve the problem.

A total of RM15,000 for diesel and RM13,000 for the rental of the generators per month were allocated to any quarter that could help solve the problem.

SMK Katibas Co-operative of Song responded by taking the initiative to rent three sets of generators of 3,000kw, 4,000kw and 650kw, two pumps, and two filter drums for RM13,000 per month.

The Borneo Post was told then that SMK Katibas got back to its feet and continued to serve students from 140 longhouses in Katibas area.

Jabu said all the students and staff now had to go to the streams nearby to bathe and do their laundry.

“Parents and grandparents like us are frustrated and angry, but we can’t do anything. We don’t want the school to close as we can’t pay for our children or grandchildren to go to the school in town.

“It costs us RM350 one way to go to Song as my longhouse is a six-hour boat ride from Song. A return trip would mean RM700. Who has that kind of money?”