Council to resurface 65-metre Kobusak road
Published on: Wednesday, November 08, 2023
By: Sidney Skinner
The concessionaire’s workers patching up sections of Lorong Burung Kelepuin at the end of last month.
AFTER almost a year, the District Council is finally gearing up to resurface a 65-metre road in the Kobusak area of Penampang, while City Hall is weighing up the possibility of improving a 500-metre stretch in a Likas neighbourhood at some point in 2024.
This follows feedback from two rate-payers about the lack of maintenance carried out on Lorong Mutiara Kobusak and Lorong Burung Kelepuin.
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The drivers who brought this to Hotline’s attention were displeased about the gradually deteriorating state of the roads in Taman Mutiara and Taman Melor.
They had wearied of bringing their cars to the workshop for repairs each time the undercarriage was damaged by the potholes, depressions and cracks which had formed in these stretches.
Their grievances were forwarded to the Council and City Hall.
A Council spokesman said it was keen to address the “ponding problem” on Lorong Mutiara Kobusak as this had given rise to the inconvenience caused by the potholes which frequently formed in different parts of the stretch.
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“Pools of rainwater collect on the road after a downpour,” he said.
“The runoff occasionally takes days to dry up, during which time sections of the asphalt get eaten away by these fluids, leaving ‘holes’ in the road.
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“We intend to have a cross culvert installed beneath the stretch to mitigate this ponding problem, before having Lorong Mutiara Kobusak resealed.”
He said the agency had just succeeded in securing funding to carry out this improvement.
“A tender will be called shortly so that a contractor can be appointed for the task.
“We tentatively hope to have the road work completed by the end of December.”
The Council’s staff noted that the stretch was already in a “keadaan teruk (deplorable condition)” during a check at the end of December 2022, according to the spokesman.
He said they went back to measure the length of stretch and size of the potholes a month later
He said, at one point, during the intervening months, the agency had considered cementing the damaged sections of the road.
PERRY of Penampang said she had been contacting the Council, on and off, “for years” about the road woes in Taman Mutiara.
“Someone from the agency came to photograph the potholes at one stage,” she said. “But, nothing ever came of this effort.”
She said one of her neighbours got so fed up of waiting for the Council to act that he actually engaged a private contractor to attend to Lorong Mutiara Kobusak.
These repairs didn’t prove durable as the potholes resurfaced again after a few months, according to Perry.
“With the heavy rains which we have been experiencing on and off for the past few weeks, the damage has become worse.”
Meanwhile, City Hall is considering having a fresh layer of asphalt applied to Lorong Burung Kelepuin and has included this potential refurbishment effort in its list of proposed works for the coming year.
A spokesman for the agency said its Road Patching Gang (RPG) went to Taman Melor in September, shortly after confirming that the road was under the agency’s maintenance.
“Our RPG found that the asphalt was cracked in many places,” he said.
“The team members noticed that depressions had formed in other parts of the road.”
They returned on September 29 to seal the deep potholes which had formed at the turn-off from Jalan Tuaran to the neighbourhood, according to him.
He said the government concessionaire was apprised of the other irregularities on the housing road and urged to have the necessary repairs made as soon as possible.
“The company’s workers patched up some of the depressions on the housing road but failed to attend to those near the exit-point to the main road or the cracks near a petrol kiosk in the area.
“We will try to deal with these problems next year.”
OLSEN of Likas said he had been contacting the agency, on and off for years, about the problems of his housing road.
“I was made to understand, at one point, that City Hall had forwarded my grouse to the government concessionaire,” he said.
“The company’s staff was advised to inspect the road and carry out repairs, if it warranted. Nothing has come of this effort, so far”.
Olsen decried the poor upkeep of Lorong Burung Kelepuin.
“I settle my annual assessment with City Hall promptly each year. I cannot understand why the agency has been slow to put the money, which my neighbours and I pay to good use by improving the condition of the stretch.”
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