(From left) Sidek, Zulkifli, Ismail, Madius and Rundi during the official launch of the new forensic building.
BINTULU: The Chemistry Department Malaysia (Kimia Malaysia) Bintulu branch has recorded an increase in the number of analysis cases from January to November 2015 compared to the previous year.
Its director general Ismail Talib said an increase of 20 per cent was recorded for narcotic cases and 30 and 45 per cent for toxicology and criminalogy cases respectively.
“During the period under review, the Department of Chemistry Bintulu branch received 8,369 cases involving 12,437 samples.
“Out of this number, there were 1,922 forensic cases involving 4,345 samples, while for non- forensic, 6,447 cases with 8,092 samples,” he said at the offical launch of Kimia Malaysia new Forensic Building Bintulu branch yesterday.
The increase in the number of cases, he said, showed the confidence of clients to the anaylsis services provided by its Bintulu branch laboratory.
“In line with this increase in cases, the department plans to increase its capacity to meet the hope and expectation of clients in providing quality service,” he said.
He said to ensure that the department would provide the best services, they would get feedbacks on the needs of their customers through dialogues and evaluate the customer’s satisfaction on a regular basis.
From this feedback, he said some improvements have been and are being made such as recruiting more staff and adding more sophisticated analysis equipment to expand the scope of analysis as well as shorten the time of getting the analysis reports.
Among its main clients are police, Road Transport Department, hospital, health office, Public Works Department, Environmental Department, Lembaga Air Kuching Utara Management Sdn Bhd and Customs Department.
The Bintulu branch laboratory started operations on April 12, 1986 which is the second branch set up after its laboratory in Kuching.
“The main objective of this lab is to provide scientific analysis services which is comprehensive, accurate, fast, efficient and with high quality to the public and private sector in Sarawak and for the Northern region in particular,” he said.
During that time, Bintulu branch has only 14 staff but to-date the number of employees have increased to 46 people and this he said was clear evidence of the government’s determination to boost the capacity and improve the delivery of the department.
The official opening ceremony of the new forensic building of Kimia Malaysia Bintulu branch was officiated by Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) Datuk Seri Panglima Madius Tangau.
Among those present were Assistant Minister of Public Utilities (Electricity and Telecommunication) Datuk Dr Stephen Rundi Utom, MOSTI deputy secretary general Dr Zulkifli Mohamed Hashim and Kimia Malaysia Bintulu branch director Sidek Ahmad.