KUCHING: One of the challenges faced by Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) in their road maintenance is crops planted on the roadsides.
CMS Group CEO Dato Isaac Lugun says most of the road shoulders are road reserves under government land.
“It is a sensitive matter to handle, but we handle it on a case-to-case basis,” he told reporters after the launching of the Performance-Based Contracts (PBC) workshop at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) yesterday.
He said in tackling the matter, CMS would have to meet and explain to the villagers or head of villagers that the reason the crops needed to be cleared off was for road maintenance work to be done.
“We cannot allow the crops along the road shoulders to hold back the improvement of roads.
“But we understand their sensitivity, we will handle it with that kind of manner where we will speak to them first,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, CMS Roads SdnBhd southern regional manager Abdul Rahim Jamal said crops planted on road shoulders were one of the challenges under the implementation of the PBCs.
“Cash crops like corn and vegetables are planted on road shoulders.
“We can find this problem in every division, and we can’t do the necessary maintenance activities,” he said.
He mentioned sometimes that local residents did not allow CMS to do any work to avoid damaging their crops.
“Another challenge is due to overloading by third parties,” he said.
He said overloading was a major factor in premature deterioration and damage to roads because the roads were not designed to handle high axial loads.
