KUCHING: All stakeholders involved with the Pan Borneo Sarawak Highway project were reminded to comply with the terms of agreement or the project will be awarded to third party if they failed to comply.
This was pointed out by Minister of Public Works, Dato Sri Fadillah Yusof during a press conference on Traffic Management Plan (TMP) on Sarawak Pan Borneo Highway Project at Hilton Hotel here, yesterday.
“This will be the last warning from the ministry and we will appoint a third party to ensure compliance to the traffic management and also maintenance work and we will also withdraw the award to the contractors,” said Fadillah.
The round table discussion yesterday included all stakeholders involved with the Pan Borneo Sarawak Highway Project, namely JKR Malaysia, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Transportation (MIDT) Sarawak, MD Lebuhraya Borneo-Utara who become the Project Delivery Partners (PDP) for Pan Borneo Highway and all the consultants, ICE (Independent Checker Engineer), Traffic Management Consultants, and all work package consultants.
The objective was to review the update of the overall progress of the project, issues arising during the implementation of the project, and further resolution to ensure the project implementation aligned with the plan as well as the way forward for the project.
“The outcome of the discussion, we agree that all the set of SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the project including the compliance of the agreement must be upgraded and implemented.
“PDP has presented on what are the measures to be taken to ensure they fully comply with the terms of agreement and also SOP related to traffic and project management.
“This project comprising two things, firstly to build and repair Pan Borneo Highway with the existing road which is currently only able to cater not more than seven million ESAL (Equivalent Single Axle Load). This new road will become R5 with four lanes and able to cater to more than 25 million ESAL,” Fadillah explained.
He also noted that the contractors are requested to maintain the existing road and to do rehabilitation on the existing roads which are expected to complete around March.
“In the meantime, I urge road users to drive carefully, comply with the signboards and speed limits. We are also directing PDP and work package contractors to upgrade their traffic management programme, the signboards must be clear, must have reflectors, increase the number of blinkers so that road users are aware of the dangers and provide directions to them.
“I also have informed the contractors and PDP that I will continue my working schedule to do spot checks and I will ensure these things are complied with. In today’s discussion, all have agreed to comply with the rules and most of this project is ahead of schedule. Only three work packages are behind time but the contractors need to focus and catch up,” he added.
Meanwhile, Fadillah also said that they have established a Facebook page for Pan Borneo Highway, specifically for the public to make reports regarding the highway.
“The response will be taken two hours after a report is made, if the report is about potholes, the action must be taken within 24 hours to cover the potholes, but if it involved structure failure, it will take some time and even need extra allocation.
At present RM6 million is allocated to cater for structure repairs from January to March,” he said.
