KARAMUNTING ROAD IN VERY SLOW PROGRESS

INSPECTING….. Hiew and Johnny Tan inspecting the construction work on the road in the rain.

By : DAP MEDIA

THE PEOPLE in and around the Karamunting area in Sandakan complained to the Sabah DAP concerning the very slow progress of the main road which has started work some three years ago and still showed no sign of a final completion. This was made during the visit of the Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament Hiew King Cheu on the 15th of September to Sandakan.

Accompanying Hiew was Johnny Tan of the DAP Elupora Branch, and they have inspected the whole stretch of the Karamunting road which is still under construction. The road had been dug up here and there and became very muddy during rainy days. The work is carried out at a slow speed and the people are very unhappy about the slow progress which had brought them with a lot of inconvenient especially the regular traffic jam.

The people told the KK MP that they don’t know when this stretch of road will eventually be completed, but for sure their suffering will continue. It is a fact that there is not real progress in the work here, because compared with the last few trips by the MP to Sandakan, there seems to be only little progress on the road. There is a lot of work to be carried out on this road, especially on the drainage work, road base, and asphalt top layer.

The people wondered why JKR did not make the contractor to speed up with the work, or make them to increase their working hours, manpower, and machineries. This is only a short few kilometers of road upgrading work and it shouldn’t take such a long time.

MP Hiew asked the JKR to pay particular attention to ensure the contractor to speed up their work schedule here and this should not allow for further delay. The contract period is definitely running into extra time and delay now, we think extension of time has been granted to the contractor.

The Karamunting Road is a road having a lot of very heavy trucks and oil tankers traffic. If the road is not built to high specification and good quality, we can be sure there will be another “BN’s Taufo Road” appearing in a short while. From the look of how the new road is constructed, many people would say that it is not constructed with good quality and be unable to sustain the heavy load of the trucks and tankers.

MP Hiew reminds the JKR and its consultant to pay particular attention to ensure that the road is built under close supervision and with ample testing on the work is carried out. We really do not wish to see that the new road will break up after a short while like the other roads in Sabah. Of course, this will be at the cost of the people again.