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'Unmade' roads not only in Sabah, but Camerons, too

I find the tweet between Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Housing, Local Government and Urban Well-being Minister Abdul Dahalan Rahman to be interesting.

Why does it have to take the villagers from six villages in Sabah to come together to raise funds for the construction of their own road connecting their villages to Pitas town, before these two cabinet ministers start looking into the plight of the villagers when the road construction halted in 2000?

This is not the only case where projects are stalled for whatever reasons. In fact, there are cases where even though the project costs only RM6 million, there are no funds to carry out the project.

When I visited Sg Palas Boh Tea Plantation in 2009, I was shocked to see the condition of the road and the number of tourists (both local and foreign) using the road to reach the tea plantation.

Cars from both directions were caught in a traffic jam, and my car could have easily plunged into the ravine if I had been a novice driver. A national tragedy is waiting to happen.

Despite highlighting this to former tourism minister Dr Ng Yen Yen, who was also the Member of Parliament for Raub, there has been no response.

Further, I also highlighted the matter to the elected Member of Parliament for Cameron Highlands. Here again, there has been no response.

I also checked with the Public Works Department in both Cameron Highlands and its state office in Kuantan, and both told me that there was no budget to expand the road.

I was told that the budget to expand the road would involve RM6 million and it would be included only during the budget roll-out in early 2015.

With 2015 just two months away, I wonder if this ‘promise’ that was made about one-and-half year ago would be fulfilled. Or does it have to take a major accident to happen before our government looks into the complaints raised?


STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.

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