KOTA KINABALU – Sabah Works Minister Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin has lashed out at the Finance Ministry (MoF) for taking away the power to supervise road maintenance and repairs from the Public Works Department (PWD), which is under his portfolio.
He said the authority now lies with MoF itself, which does not have the expertise to carry out the necessary tasks.
Bung Moktar said of the 21,000km of roads under the state government, some 11,000km have been under PWD purview, while the rest are under district and municipal councils.
However, a letter withdrawing PWD’s authority over the roads under its supervision was issued by MoF late last month, he added.
He said state Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun made the decision to take over and install MoF as the “project director” over the road works.
By doing so, he claimed that Masidi has gone against the advice of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and directive of the Treasury.
“This means that the state government will have to spend RM5 million annually on private consultants and maintenance, instead of allowing PWD to do the work.
“With this decision, all efforts already undertaken by PWD on local government roads will go to waste.”
He said as the works minister, he will be questioned by the people on the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah government’s mission to ensure roads in the state are upgraded.
Bung Moktar is the Umno assemblyman for Lamag, while Masidi is Bersatu assemblyman for Karanaan.
Between 2002 and 2020, the government had paid RM2.6 billion to a road concessionaire, but Malaysian Road Records Information System data show that the conditions of district and municipal councils’ roads have severely deteriorated.
PWD was appointed as project director to oversee the maintenance works of the roads from 2017 to 2020.
The latest move sees MoF appointed as project director to oversee local government roads and pay RM5 million annually to a private consultant.
MACC had in 2016 advised the ministry to surrender technical engineering supervision to PWD to deal with the technical aspects of the road works, said Bung Moktar.
PWD was then appointed as project director to oversee the maintenance works on district and municipal councils’ roads until the recent MoF take-over letter arrived. – The Vibes, June 2, 2021
