Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof
KUCHING (Aug 3): The government will continue with the proposed Sarawak-Sabah Link Road (SSLR) project, said Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof.
He said that a Letter of Intention (LoI) hads been issued to the contractor on July 7, 2020 and the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) would be issued to the contractor once the contractor fulfilled all the terms and conditions set in the tender document.
“The government will proceed with the SSLR project which will be implemented by phases, where Phase 1 will be from Lawas to Kampung Pa’ Berunut and Phase 2 will be from Kampung Pa’ Berunut to Long Lama,” Fadillah said in his winding-up speech at Dewan Rakyat this afternoon
The senior minister said the SSLR project would be given priority together with the Pan Borneo Highway project over all else in the state, where at the moment the latter’s progress at Sarawak side as of June 2020 was at 52 per cent.
He said the progress of the Pan Borneo Highway project did not include the already completed two out of 11 packages, which are the 33km Telok Melano to Sematan stretch opened in January 2019, and the 43km Nyabau Junction to Bakun stretch completed in Dec 2019.
Meanwhile, Fadillah said that while the government of the day would honour the decision by the previous government on the termination of the Project Delivery Partner (PDP) for the Pan Borneo Highway project, his ministry would carry out continuous mitigation plan and follow-ups to ensure the smooth progress of the project as it was from the previous government.
“Initially the termination of the PDP by the previous government was expected to cut down cost.
“However, it did not take into account the impact on project administration, contract amendment, welfare of staff and workers involved, and the need to improve on capacity and existing technical expertise,” he said.
On that note, Fadillah also assured that the Sarawak Public Works Department (JKR) would continuously monitor the progress of the Pan Borneo Highway project to ensure the implementation meets the set specifications, good quality and safe for road users.
On other road developments for Sarawak, Fadillah said his ministry has completed the routine maintenance for the 128.46km Bakung Junction – Bakun Dam road with a monthly cost of about RM345,500.
He said an allocation of RM6.15 million had been allocated for routine pavement of the road for the years 2017 till 2019.
Nonetheless, he said approval for allocation to maintain the road was subject to priority list by the Sarawak JKR.
He said a check by his ministry revealed that the proposal to upgrade the Bakun Junction – Bakun Dam road was not listed in the priority list of the Sarawak Government under Rolling Plan 1 of the 12th Malaysia Plan which has been forwarded recently to the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department.
However, Fadillah said, his ministry is willing to consider any road development proposal by the Sarawak Government under the Rolling Plan as long as they meet the technical needs to be upgraded.
Over in Serian, Fadillah said his ministry had carried out routine maintenance costing RM3.5 yearly, and pavement works worth RM11.25 million for the years 2017 till 2020.
For this year alone, he said five projects worth RM3.9 million had been allocated to resurface the 41.9km Serian – Tebedu road.
On top of that, he said his ministry had approved RM5 million for slope repair works, which should start this month, at the landslide location near Bukit Binong along the KM16 and KM18 stretch.
Fadillah said his ministry also allocated another RM350,000 to improve the safety aspect of the road through the blackspot treatment to be implemented this year.
This project would involve installing guardrails, safety signs and solar street lighting in critical sections.