Road Slope Landslides Attributable to Federal Failure - Dr. Jeffrey

KOTA KINABALU - “The spate of road slope landslides the past few days is attributable to the failure of the federal government in not providing the necessary funds for road slope repairs.  The years of neglect by the federal government and failure to provide the necessary funds is taking its toll on road slopes throughout Sabah particularly on hill slopes” said Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, STAR Sabah Chief, commenting on the landslides that effectively cut off the Penampang-Tambunan, Bundu Tuhan-Kundasang roads and several other landslides affecting major roads that stopped traffic while waiting to be cleared.

Either the federal government with its Prime Minister and Minister of Works or the Sabah government with its Chief Minister and Minister of Infrastructure are sleeping on the job and needs to be replaced or Sabah is a faraway colony that Putrajaya has no little priority to provide the federal funding.

For the record, JKR Sabah have done their homework and have been asking for RM1.0 billion to repair 647 road slopes failures since 2009 but to no avail.

Another round of landslides damaging major roads in January 2013 renewed and added further calls for federal funds to repair the road slopes but unfortunately almost none came.

And all this while the Sabah Umno and its Chief Minister have been bragging that there is very good and cordial relations with Putrajaya and all it need was a whisper in PM Najib’s ears and it will be done.  Alas, it is not to be.

Perhaps, the Chief Minister should now shout into Najib’s ears before the funds can be made available. But he may not be minded to do that as it is there are already 8 Umno division chiefs from Sabah that want him replaced and another faction leader from Kota Belud waiting to be the next Chief Minister.

Whatever the political in-fighting, the Chief Minister and his government must wake up and take the necessary action to secure federal funding for the road slopes and road repairs.

Sabahans are suffering from the failure of government to repair the road slope failures.   They have now had to bear extra travelling and fuel costs and extra travelling time with road diversions.  These additional costs add further burden to their pockets already burdened by the recent petrol hike and higher costs of living in Sabah.

Even the Sabah government is not spared as it was reported that until 2007 the Sabah government suffered losses of RM2.55 billion due to the landslides.

Apart from landslides, another round of disasters is just round the corner on backlog of road repairs where another RM2.0 billion is needed and another RM700 million for repairs of 62 road bridges as disclosed by Sabah JKR Director in September 2013.    While the federal and Sabah governments only act when damage and destruction occur?