‘BOTTLE-NECK’ TO THE STORM DRAINS

NARROW….John Lee Kim Seng pointing out the narrow bottle-neck of the Karamunsing drain with Hiew.

By: DAP MEDIA

THE 20-meter wide storm drain connecting most part of Luyang, Karamunsing, and Likas into the outlet to the sea was not functioning well which frequently flooded the vast area was due to the uncompleted portion of 40 meters long portion across and under the main road in front the Karamunsing Police head quarter and Karumunsing Complex.

The Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament Hiew King Cheu was on site to check on the ‘bottle-neck’ of the drain and later checked onto the Internet ‘Google Earth’ to have a clearer bird-eye view of the whole situation. It was clear that the 20 meters wide storm drain was not built completely to the 20 meters width all the way but left with some three hundred feet long were not built with the similar width of 20 meters. It is only 6 meters wide as seen on site.

The narrow drain is definitely unable to maintain a swift flow and discharge of all the water from such a large area which it is serving now. It is understand that the government had promised to rectify the problem since 1990 general election, but until now after 20 years there is no sign of any work commencing.

LAYOUT…Copy of the layout drawing showing the location of the bottle-neck.

It is hard to believe that such serious problem can be neglected and totally forgotten. This surely will cost more tax payers money to put right the situation after so long and especially the fly-over and road works had been constructed over it.

The Irrigation and drainage department (DID/JPS), JKR and DBKK seem not taking notice on the ill situation working of this drain bottle neck in Karamunsing. It is a work delayed for 20 years.

The KK MP Hiew said that if the government can spend RM 20 million of the tax-payers money to beautify the river bank near Sadong Jaya, KK, why can’t the government quickly solve the 20 years old problem? May be the government thinks that it is no big deal for the Kota Kinabalu City to continue to face the flood or even more serious flood in the future.

Hiew urges the authorities to immediately to start on plans to rectify the bottle-neck and get the drains to work as what it should be doing. Any future flood can cost the people lots of uncountable losses.