Road cut-off in Murum indicates need for regular project inspections, says PKR man

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Abun Sui Anyit

KUCHING (Aug 6): The incident that struck the road leading to the Murum hydroelectric dam should serve as a lesson for the authorities concerned about the importance of regular quality and maintenance inspections on mega projects such as the Pan Borneo Highway development.

In pointing this out, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Sarawak information chief Abun Sui Anyit said regular inspections were necessary to ensure that every aspect of the works would meet the set standards and that the road would always be passable even during heavy rain.

His statement today was made in connection with the information received by Sarawak PKR from the people in Murum about the road leading to the dam, which was cut off at Section CH13+300 due to heavy rain.

“However, what’s surprising was that the culvert there looks small in comparison with the width of the river,” said Abun, adding that the incident there had raised a lot of questions.

“The road doesn’t seem to work well, especially when there is a lot of debris from the forest area upstream that flows into the river during the rainy season and during floods.

“When that happens, the culvert cannot cope with the surge in water volume; eventually, the water overflows onto the road, inundates it and causes the access to be cut off,” he added.

It is informed that the road has been in use for less than 10 years.

The road cut-off, said Abun, had adversely affected the residents of many longhouses in Murum such as Long Peran, Long Menapa, Long Luar, Long Tangau, as well as Long Singu in the Metalun area, where the Metalun National School is located at.

“In Kawan Tegulang, the affected longhouses are Long Wat, Long Malim Penan, Long Malim Kenyah, Long Magan and Long Lawen. The primary school in this area is SK Tegulang.

“Apart from the villages, there are also some palm oil plantations of which the operations are fully dependent on this Murum road.

“Local and visiting communities who want to go inland via this road were also affected by the cut-off.”

In this regard, Abun questioned the quality of that stretch and was wondering if its construction had adhered strictly to the specifications.

Adding on, he said the authorities concerned should inspect whether or not the culverts built along the Pan Borneo Highway were working and able to accommodate high volume of water during the rainy season.

He said the government, through the Public Works Department, should inspect all the existing culverts along the Pan Borneo Highway to prevent any incident like the one that struck Jalan Murum from occurring.