Dr Abdul Rahman (in the excavator) with (from left) Marzuki, Alice and Hasidah giving their thumbs-up for the project after the earth-breaking. — Photo by Muhammad Rais Sanusi
KUCHING: Sarawak is well on its way to achieve 97 per cent electricity coverage by 2020 with the RM2.37 billion special allocation in the State Budget 2019.
In pointing this out, Assistant Minister of Rural Electricity Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi said the electricity coverage in Sarawak currently stood at 91 per cent.
“About nine per cent or 30,400 households in rural areas still have no access to 24-hour power supply. Our target is to achieve 100 per cent electricity coverage by the year 2025.
“With the RM2.37 billion special allocation announced (last month) by the Chief Minister, we will be able to increase the electricity coverage from 91 to 97 per cent by 2020,” he said before performing the earth-breaking for a Rural Electrification Scheme (RES) project in Kpg Ulu Sungai Sinjan at Jalan Layang-Layang in Petra Jaya here yesterday.
Dr Abdul Rahman said the RES project in Kpg Ulu Sungai Sinjan is set to benefit 28 households.
“This project is implemented by the Sarawak government with a state fund worth RM540,000.
“We are hopeful that the project will be completed before Ramadan next year. And all the 28 households in this village will be equipped with electricity supply,” he added.
The Pantai Damai assemblyman pointed out that the Sarawak government is caring enough to make sure that all residential areas, especially the rural ones, have access to basic utilities such as electricity and water.
Dr Abdul Rahman acknowledged that delay in project implementation sometimes happened to some rural villages because of land status issue.
“It is not that the Sarawak government does not want to provide electricity supply but we need to deal with the land status first.”
He also pledged that the Sarawak government’s efforts to provide power supply to the rural folk across the state are on-going until the target is achieved.
Among those present were Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Utilities Dato Alice Jawan and Kpg Malaysia Jaya village head Marzuki Hamdan.