KUCHING: Dilapidated schools in the state that are being repaired and/or restored using a RM1-billion contra loan arrangement with the federal government are in various stages of progress.
Deputy Education Minister Dr Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon said as of last month, RM700 million was paid by the state government for the projects.
He said repairing and upgrading of the dilapidated schools covered various scopes such as the construction of classrooms, administrative blocks, hostels, teacher’s quarters, dining hall, resource centres, science rooms, toilets and other facilities.
“The project to repair the dilapidated schools with a fund of RM1 billion is implemented through three phases. The first phase involves 41 schools and the project costs RM350 million.
“The project involves 52 schools in phase two costing RM350 million, and for the third phase it is still being finalised on the list and scopes of works by Ministry of Education (MOE) with the Sarawak government involving a project costing of RM300 million,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat in response to Datuk Robert Lawson Chuat (GPS-Betong) during the question-and-answer session on Tuesday (Aug 18).
Chuat was asking on the implementation status of the restoration project, upgrading or rebuilding of dilapidated schools in Sarawak as promised by the previous federal government after Sarawak paid a sum of RM700 million out of the RM1 billion contra loan payment to the federal government.
“As of Aug 17, the government has approved 93 dilapidated school projects for phase one and two at a cost of RM700 million.
“For the implementation status for phase one, a total of 21 projects are in the construction phase and 20 projects are in the pre-construction stage whereas four projects are in the process of tender evaluation, five in the process of issuing a letter of acceptance, five projects in the process of finalising the appointment of contractors and six projects are expected to be tendered by end of Sept 2020,” he said.
He said for projects in phase two, all are in the pre-construction phase and the Sarawak Public Works Department (JKR) is in the process of preparing tender documents with the project expected to be tendered in stages on Aug 22.
On the number of schools in the parliamentary constituency of Betong that have been approved under the RM1 billon contra loan payment, Mah said the government had approved nine projects of upgrading the dilapidated schools in Betong.
Under phase one the schools covered are SK Mangut, SK Spaoh, SK Bungin, SMK Spaoh, SK Medang, SK Tui, SK Suri and SK Nanga Gayau whereas SK Paku Central is under phase two.
