Pedada Road now known as Dr Wong Soon Kai Road

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SIBU: The Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources has approved the renaming of Pedada Road as Dr Wong Soon Kai Road.

Sibu Municipal Council chairman Datuk Tiong Thai King said the approval was made on Oct 18.

“The renaming of the road is to remember the late Datuk Patinggi Dr Wong Soon Kai.

“The council is in the process of changing the road sign,” he told a full council meeting yesterday.

Wong, a former deputy chief minister, passed away at the age of 90 on March 22 last year, in Kuching.

Born on Feb 10, 1927 in Sungai Assan here, he was also the third Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president from 1991 to 1996.

Wong and his wife Datin Patinggi Datuk Seri Dr Jane Yong graduated as doctors from King Edward VII College of Medicine, University Malaya in Singapore in 1974.

Among his classmates were Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his wife Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali.

In 1959, he stamped another achievement as the first Sarawakian to graduate as a surgeon in Britain.

He entered politics in 1974, and retired in 1996 after losing the Bukit Assek seat to former Sarawak DAP chairman, the late Wong Ho Leng, in the seventh state election.

He is buried at Nirvana Memorial Park in Kuching.