Ongoing fire station projects to continue – Bomba D-G

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Mohammad Hamdan Wahid inspecting the Labuan firebrigade marching on his one-day working visit to Labuan yesterday. — Bernama photo

LABUAN: All ongoing fire station projects will continue despite the country’s current financial status.

Newly-appointed Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) director-general Mohammad Hamdan Wahid said future high impact projects would also be unaffected, as special requests would be submitted to the government for consideration.

“Projects (fire stations) that are being implemented will not be affected, as the letter of acceptance had been received for implementation,” he told the press here yesterday.

Hamdan who is on a one-day working visit to Labuan said Sarawak has 30 existing fire stations, with seven under construction, while Sabah has 22 existing stations, with two ongoing, and another two in the pipeline.

“In Labuan we have three stations with two ongoing including the new headquarters,” he said.

He said to improve rescue efforts, the department needed a total of 529 stations nationwide in addition to the existing number to achieve a strategic stage with faster response time.

“To achieve the number, we are planning to build stations in the rural areas and water villages in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan,” he said.

However, he said, projects that had been planned earlier and had not been approved would be scrutinised and those categorised as people-centric projects would be downsized.

Hamdan said the government through the Finance Ministry was in the process of acquisition and expenditure rationalisation and his department was not spared from being directed to submit the list of projects for review and rationalisation based on priority.

“With the rationalisation efforts, our department is optimising our workforce to better serve the people,” he said. — Bernama