MAKING SEMBULAN CLEAN AND BEAUTIFUL

EXPLAINS....Architect Shim Sie Hong explains to Chief Minister Musa Aman the development stages of the Sembulan River Park.

By : REBECCA CHONG

A VILLAGE of about 15,000 people sitting in the Sembulan River sticks out like a sore thumb in the heart of buzzing Kota Kinabalu. It is surrounded by new hotels, resorts, a golf course, banks, office and shopping complexes.

But a multi million river beautification project is spearheading changes to rundown Kampung Sembulan. And efforts are underway to clean up the village of about 400 wooden houses built on stilts.

Chief Minister Musa Aman recently launched the first phase of the Sembulan river park which has a footpath that runs along half of the 1.6km (one-mile) river in Sadong Jaya to Kampung Sembulan Lama.

Money for the project has come from the federal government. The first phase designed by Shim Sie Hong, an architect, cost RM 24 milllion and is modeled on the one of the Singapore River.

The well-lit park with fountains and music filling the air is the first to be monitored by a police kiosk through 47 close-circuit television cameras round the clock under a safe city programme of Kota Kinabalu City Hall.

There are quays for boats and people can take boat rides along the river. The park caters for all including the handicapped. People in wheelchairs can move around it easily and so can mothers pushing their babies in prams. It has a toilet for handicapped people and a room for mothers to change their baby’s diapers.

It is part of a massive project of the Sabah development corridor to expand Kota Kinabalu southward. Construction of a state-of-the-art Gleneagles medical centre as part of a RM 500 million mixed integrated development and a new phase of KK Times Square opposite the Sembulan river park is taking place.

Musa says that Sembulan river park is another attraction for tourists. Sabah earns about RM4 billion a year from about 2.6m tourists.

Cleaning up of the Sembulan village has already begun and should be completed by next year. The Sabah government has also given city hall RM 2 million more to keep the city clean and in order. This year it is getting RM 19 million for rubbish collection, cleaning drains, repairing and cleaning roads, and landscaping.

“The Barisan Nasional government will continue to beautify Kota Kinabalu,” Musa says. “I hope the people will help keep Kota Kinabalu clean and beautiful.” (Insight Sabah)