WAWASAN BUS TERMINAL UPGRADING SOON

By : DAP MEDIA

THE many problems associated with the Wawasan Bus Terminal in Kota Kinabalu remained unsolved after years of complaints made by the commuters using this bus terminal to get in and out of the KK city, and the bus operators are having enough headaches to drive here and to pick up passengers from here.

The Minister in the Prime Minister Department Dato’ Nazri had also come to visit the bus terminal and took a bus ride with the Mayor of Kota Kinabalu. On the spot, he announced an allocation of RM5 million for use to upgrade the bad facilities in the bus terminal, until today no work had started yet.

The KK MP Hiew King Cheu brought the matter up in a Parliament question that when is the promised money of RM5 million for the upgrading work is going to arrive to enable the work to be started and when will actually the work to commence.

The Minister gave his answer by saying that the money of RM5 million which is to be made available is a federal fund under the Public Transport allocation (Kumpulan Wang Pengangkutan Awam–KWAPA) for the upgrading of the Kota Kinabalu Wawasan bus terminal.

He further informed that the appointment of the contractor to carry out the project had been done through an open tendering process. The work at the bus terminal will start any time now in June this year. The project shall be completed by June 2012.

Hiew hopes what the minister said was true and will be done as promised. It is becoming very difficult for the commuters to get in and out especially in the wet weather due to the muddy and water pools. The buses also find it difficult to avoid the deep water potholes.

It is learnt that the authorities are going to build an over head foot bridge to get across the main road linking the bus terminal to the Wawasan building. There will be some covered walkways for the passengers to get in and out without exposing to the sun and rain.

Hiew said he will ask for the drawing from the authorities on the upgrading work to see and check whether there are some other necessary facilities which have not been included. He will later then forward the recommendations to the authorities for their action to improve.

The views of the bus operators and the commuters must also be taken into account and be implemented, because these people are the one using the bus terminal every day, and not those who sit in the office.