Reveal how much the road concessionaires are getting
Published on: Saturday, October 28, 2017
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Further to our letter regarding the badly maintained roads around Sabah, we are left wondering as to whether there will be a response or any action from the Minister in charge of roads in Sabah.
Presumably this would fall under the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development.
An explanation and clarification is needed on the sorry state of disrepair.
In particular, how the roads around Sabah can be, and continues to be left in such a deplorable condition.
In the Daily Express on 25th Oct 2017 it was reported that, ‘a Toyota Avanza with nine secondary students skidded off the road at Jalan Kanibongan-Pitas after apparently hitting a pothole, resulting in the deaths of four of them...while the rest injured, one badly’.
Have there been other tragic accidents caused by similar bad road maintenance?
Sabahans love to speed, and with badly maintained roads, this can be deadly.
There must be some kind of analysis of the overall situation and what preventive measures can be taken.
How much are we paying the five Concessionaires to oversee the maintenance of the roads?
Which government personnel are in charge of overseeing the Concessionaires?
If the Concessionaires and the respective government personnel are not doing their work, the contracts should be ended.
Asking the public to believe the authorities’ constant plea of lack of funds to do repairs is not valid for the simple reason that we have 5-year plans.
Maintenance expenditures should have been included. It is pointless to build new roads otherwise.
We recall a joke an Engineer had relayed to us, where the Consultant Engineer for a newly-completed highway in Sabah had been asked as to why there were no drains built.
The reply had been that Sabahans never maintain the drains anyway, so it was pointless.
This was supposed to have been about 40 years ago. Have civil servants moved forward in their approach to their responsibilities?
Sabah boasts of the positive developments that had occurred over the years.
That may be true to a certain extent, however, when basic road maintenance cannot be carried out year after year, despite the many public complaints; it negates the whole concept of development.
We know there had been complaints, because we had spoken to people along the route.
The Yang Berhomats of those areas should be voicing out such concerns of the people – if not done already.
If they have not done this, they should also step down.
Feedback to the government is important and if not acted upon breed great anger and dissatisfaction especially among surviving relatives of accidents victims.
Politicians must not rely on past methods to avoid explanations and accountability to the general public, who after all are taxpayers. It is they who pay the salaries of public servants.
Concerned citizens
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