Roland Engan
MIRI: PKR Baram welcomes the recent completion of a bridge across Baram River in Long Lama.
Its chairman Roland Engan said the public was looking forward to fast delivery of such basic infrastructure and amenities in the area to ease the movement of people and goods.
“The people would certainly be able to move around more comfortably now that the bridge has been completed,” he said through a press statement received here yesterday.
Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau officiated at the soft opening of the RM 67.1 million bridge on Thursday, marking a new chapter of unfettered travel, and the end of the grinding ferry crossing for people and their vehicles.
Residents of Long Lama, settlements and longhouses in the interior of Apoh, Tutoh and other regions are glad to see the back of the ferry which they had to pay to cross the Baram River.
The Sarawak government funded the 573-metre double-lane bridge, at a cost of RM67,109,453, which was approved by the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem during the State Legislative Assembly sitting in 2016.
Rolland said the bridge project was very much welcomed by the local community in contrast to potentially destructive projects such as a (Baram) dam.
He added the people preferred high impact projects such as bridges, roads, water treatment plants, renewable energy, telecommunication, places of worship, education centres and agriculture collection centres.
He also suggested that the Sarawak government speed up the surveying of individual native land under Section 18 of the Land Code, and to recognise all land boundaries between villages.
“The people would be more at ease and free to develop their land with distinctly clear ownership (boundary),” he added.