Pan Borneo funds missing?
Published on: Tuesday, September 04, 2018
The Government will be looking into the delay of the construction of the Pan Borneo Highway in Sabah where funds have been channelled. Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (pic) said the Government would be investigating into where the huge amount of funds had gone to as it involved a major development and the Government was committed to continue the implementation of the highway even though it may be delayed from the target date. He said apart from that, the Government was also looking into ways for the highway to avoid crossing into Brunei so as to do away with the process of immigration and to smoothen movements between Sabah and Sarawak.
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"This Pan-Borneo Highway should actually have progressed a lot, but I don't know how the Sabah portion was left out, though I believe the money for this development was given to the Sabah Government. "We will investigate to see where this money went. However, progress has been made in the construction. Maybe they were just delayed a little, but our intention is to build this Pan-Borneo Highway. However, our plan is that the road doesn't enter into Brunei," he said.
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"The road into Brunei is already there...this is not a problem but, if possible, we want a smooth journey (without going into Brunei)," he told a media conference at Istana Qashr Munee here at the end of his two-day official visit to Brunei. He said several other issues were also discussed briefly in the four-eye meeting between him and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah at Istana Nurul Iman Monday and they would be followed up by the relevant officials.
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Earlier, at a lecture in Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Dr Mahathir said the two main priorities of Malaysia now was to manage the finance of the country especially on managing the country's debt and the question of the government machinery spoiled by the previous administration. He said these are his major priorities now and the people have been told to be patient before seeing reforms by the Pakatan Harapan government. On Brunei-Malaysia relations, Dr Mahathir said the two countries have many in common which could assist to strengthen cooperation in various fields together in Asean. He gave the example of language in which Brunei, Malaysia and several other Asean countries shared an almost similar language and culture and they represented a large section of Asean. He said differences in views would occur from time to time but they were not long drawn and what was important was that the countries were able to work together looking forward. He said Malaysia's policies towards Brunei have not changed, but admitted that the two nations had several issues which needed to be ironed out. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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