THE MANY river mouths in
Sabah are urgently needed clearing, strengthening and deepening in order to
allow a swift flow of the flood water to be quickly discharged into the sea to
avoid flooding of the inland areas.
The particular case is at
the Petagas River, where its river mouth is now seriously silted up and causing
a blockage of the flow of river water into the sea (see satellite photo
attached).
The KK MP Hiew King Cheu has
brought this matter up in the Parliament recently on the 14th of June, 2012,
and he asked the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment on whether there
is a plan to clear the river mouths of all blockages and deepening the river in
Sabah to avoid flood.
The reply said there is a
preliminary plan to cope with the situation of floods at the river mouth of the
Petagas River near the KKIA at the way up to the Sungai Moyog, and shall
include the one in Putatan River. The plan was ready in 2011. The study on this
program included the deepening, and clearing of all blockages of both the
locations.
This will solve the problems
of flooding in the areas. The details of the work has been drawn up in this
year and hopefully it shall be completed in the middle of 2013 whereby the
allocation can be applied under the Third Rolling Plan, 2013 – 2014 under the
10th Malaysia Plan (RMKe-10).
MP Hiew said judging on the
slow process on applying for the allocation to be made to start on the work,
and this surely indicates the work will not start in 2013 or not even 2014.
This signifies the people are going to suffer from many more floods in the near
future when the rainy seasons return.
From the serious silting up
of the river mouth in Putatan and Petagas, we can see that the flow of river
water into the sea is blocked by the sand dunes or sand bars. If this is not
cleared or dredged away, the flow will be restricted and caused back wash or
pile-up in the up river.
It is urgent that the
authorities have to come in to carry out the deepening work as soon as possible
and should start right away. They can wait but the people here cannot wait. In
fact, the many river mouths in Sabah also faced the same problems. On the other
hand, if Sarawak can have the billions of Ringgits allocation to clean up their
river mouth, why can’t Sabah do the same and be given the money to start the
work immediately?
Sabahan is again being
sidelined by the BN government and this is a typical example to show that we
are always on the last of the long queue of fund allocation from the Federal
Government. Just to remind you that the 10th Malaysia Plan is more than half
way through, and will this be done during the third rolling plan? We will have
to see what will happen then?
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