KKIA RUNWAY DELAY, CONTRACTOR NOT PAID

THE work on the KKIA airport runway extension has not been in good progress and the whole site is seen to be deserted without activities, and machineries are idling on site.

This raised concern by many especially for those who are frequent users of the airport, and they have brought up their complaint regarding the slow if not total stoppage of work on the runway extension work with the Member of Parliament for Kota Kinabalu Dr. Hiew King Cheu.

The question on the airport issue was brought up in the Parliament during the Q and A session on the 12th of October by Dr. Hiew. This is following up on the news release in the newspaper recently made by the airport runway contractor claiming that the stop work or delayed is due to the none payment on the part of the government (Ministry of Transport). The contractor also quoted a sum of RM33 million which is payment long overdue to them.

The Minister in his reply said that the claim by the contractor is not true, and there is no delay in making payment to the contractor, especially a big sum of RM33 million. It is not true and all payment is settled to the contractor. The construction work on the KKIA airport runway extension work (package 2) will be completed on the 18th of March 2011. The package 1 on the terminal building has been completed by another contractor on the 4th of March 2010.

The answer by the Minister of Transport seems doubtful and may be someone is not telling the truth to the real reason of the slow progress and if not stop work. On the other hand, the contractor should not be so daring to go to press and telling everyone that the government owed him RM33 million that caused him to slow down on the work progress.

The question is, if the contractor is right, that means the government is not tell the truth, and why not pay the contractor. The government must explain the real situation and state the true reason behind all these happenings. The peoples waiting for the truth behind the slow progress and stop work.

The airport project must be completed immediately, and the completion date will never be achieved judging on the rate of progress on the airport runway. Basically, there is still much work to be carried out on site, and the date given by the Ministry will never be met. It is only 5 months to the mentioned completion date on the 18th of March 2011.

Dr. Hiew said there is another project by the BN, and it is a total failure and a good demonstration of the BN's bad administration, and there are many projects in Sabah under the BN which are either abandoned, deserted, complete stop work.

Pakatan Rakyat Sabah Secretariat had been following this issue of problem development projects in Sabah, and had prepared a list which will show the seriousness of failure on the part of the BN administration in implementing development projects. The BN had totally failed the Sabahan, and it is about time to change them for a better PR government.