Repairs on lifeline for Kg Kiapad-Kionsom folks
Published on: Thursday, January 07, 2021
By: Sidney Skinner
The rising levels of the water during a heavy rain, is likely to have damaged parts of this wooden bridge.
City Hall is considering the possibility of upgrading a wooden bridge across a river in one part of Kg Kiapad-Kionsom in Inanam.A City Hall spokeswoman said this refurbishment had been included among the list of works which the agency hoped to carry out in 2021.
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“Our staff had to go about 250 metres on foot to reach the bridge during the inspection which was carried out at the end of December,” she said.
“He found that the structure could still be used, but noted that it had sustained some water damage.”
She said this was likely to have occurred when it rained heavily and the water levels in the river rose.
The spokeswoman said the rural folk, who did not have their own transport, relied on the bridge to reach the nearest main road.
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“We will try to have make-shift repairs carried out while waiting for the upgrading effort to get off the ground.
“However, we will have to source for funds before we can proceed with the repairs.”
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She was responding to a plea from a village resident about the sorry state of the bridge.
YONG of Inanam said some of the wooden planks on the walkway for the bridge had come away from the nails to which they had been secured them.
“These planks slant at an angle. Those who are unaware of this could easily lose their footing and twist their ankle or, worse still, fall into river below,” he said.
“Some of the wood has splintered and could either give way or potentially injure the public who use the bridge.”
He could not understand how the wood could have deteriorated so quickly as the bridge was only built early in 2020.
“The wooden one took the place of a bamboo bridge which was built by the village folk.”
Yong said many of these residents depended on the bridge to transport their produce to Inanam.
“There is another route we can use but it involves going the long way round to get to the same destination.”
He said he had reported this problem time and again to the head of the Community Management Council for the village but, so far, nothing had been done.
“Many of the residents have taken to replacing the missing planks and repairing the damaged sections of the bridge themselves because they are so fed up with the inaction on the part of the local authorities.”
Yong provided Hotline with the location of the bridge which was forwarded to the City Hall.
The spokeswoman refuted the resident’s claim that the wooden bridge was only a year-old.
She explained that the structure was erected as part of a ‘projek infrastruktur asas/ awam (basic/ public infastructure project)” carried out by a federal economic planning unit in 2018.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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