SANDAKAN – Excitement fills the air in Kinabatangan over Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s maiden visit to the east coast of Sabah starting tomorrow.
The prime minister will be in Sandakan tomorrow and Kinabatangan on Saturday to launch the east coast packages of the Pan Borneo Highway.
The Vibes has learnt that the Sandakan Municipal Council Facebook page has been swarmed with comments ahead of Ismail Sabri’s visit.
An e-poster published on Facebook by the local government on Tuesday has drawn close to 200 comments from Sandakan folk.
Many of them want the prime minister to fix the deplorable road conditions in the two districts.
“Fix the Sandakan-Kinabatangan and Sandakan-Telupid roads,” one comment reads.
“These roads have been badly damaged over the years,” the social media user said.
Another social media user urged the prime minister to travel by road to experience firsthand the district’s poorly-maintained roads.
He noted it was accustomed for prime ministers to travel by helicopter while visiting Sabah.
Kinabatangan and Sandakan, two major districts in the east coast of Sabah, are famous for their massive cultivation of oil palm and such operations which have caused road damages and human-wildlife conflicts.
Both districts are located some 78km apart with many folk, especially from Kinabatangan, relying heavily on the road to head to Sandakan, which is a major town in the east coast district.
Another social media user noted that politicians, especially those from Barisan Nasional, often used the “fix the road” promise during election campaigns, but there has been no improvement.
Sandakan is an opposition-led constituency with its MP Vivian Wong from DAP, while Kinabatangan is under Umno, with Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin as the MP.
It is the people’s hope now that Ismail Sabri, who is from Umno, would do something about their problems, and provide additional allocations for road repairs in their constituencies.
The prime minister, who is on his second official visit to Sabah, is also expected to shore up support for Bung Moktar, following Umno Sabah chapter’s annual general meeting.
He was supposed to visit Sandakan on October 8, which among others was to declare Sandakan a city, but the event was cancelled.
Sandakan, the second-largest town in Sabah, has for the past ten years aspired to elevate its status to that of a city council. – The Vibes, November 4, 2021
