Timber truck drivers thumbed their noses at enforcement authorities by breaking through metal barriers
A ‘transformer’ truck tearing down a metal barricade along the Murum Road yesterday.
The illegal lorries commonly known as ‘lori hantu’ have created their own route by breaking through one of the metal barriers along Murum Road.
KUCHING: The state government’s impotence in reigning in errant logging companies was once again exposed yesterday when their ‘monster’ timber trucks again broke through metal barriers built across Murum Road to stop them plying the route.
This latest show of total disregard for the law by the drivers of these oversized lorries, which the locals call ‘transformers’, so infuriated Senior Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Jemut Masing that he said “Enough is enough!”
Masing called for immediate action against owners and drivers of the trucks which crashed through the barriers erected by Public Works Department early this year.
“Our Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem has shown his political will to stop such acts of vandalism on Murum Road by constructing the metal barriers but the timber companies disregarded his directive with impunity.
“So those elected representatives who have been empowered to look after logging activities and road construction must assist the chief minister to put an end to this act of road vandalism which endanger the lives of other road users especially those living in Sg Asap,” Masing told The Borneo Post here yesterday.
Masing also urged the relevant enforcement bodies such as the police and the road transport department (JPJ) to build permanent posts along the 75 km road to stop these trucks from tearing up the roads with their heavy loads and endangering other road users.
“The government spent some RM31 million last year to re-surface the entire Bakun Road. Now don’t tell me JPJ could not afford to build a permanent station along the Murum Road for much less,” Masing pointed out.
Meanwhile, Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) Belaga Youth chief Henry Kilah Talek described the show of defiance by the truck drivers and their employers as ‘a never ending story’.
“What else can we do to overcome this situation? The enforcement departments have got to do their job,” he said.
Henry feared that if nothing was done the truck drivers would feel they were above the law and would tear down more barricades.
Meanwhile, PRS Youth information chief Bit Surang said both PBB and PRS youth members from Belaga would lodge a police report on the matter and hoped the police, JPJ and Forestry Department would take immediate action against the culprits.
“As the construction of the metal barriers along Murum Road was under the instruction of the chief minister, it seemed that the destruction of the metal barrier is a direct challenge to him,” Bit pointed out.
Bit added that illegal lorries also known as ‘lori hantu’ had also created their own route by-passing these metal barriers along Murum Road.
While there are enforcement officers manning the metal barriers along Bakun Road, there are none to monitor the newly completed Murum Road where two out of three such metal barriers have been torn down.