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Are the folk forced to finance ‘development’ projects?

The government should separate the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) multi-storey carpark project from the so-called pathology and daycare block so as to speed up the implementation of the said project and also to be more accountable on its costs.

Not only that the project should be separated, but that it should be fully financed by the government instead of the present private-financing arrangement.

The SGH multi-storey carpark project has been used repeatedly by the Barisan Nasional especially the SUPP as election goodies since 2007. Yet election after election, the promise never materialised.

This is the consequence of alleged rampant corruption and over-spending by the BN government so much so that the coffers are drying and thus the government cannot afford to build the carpark for the people in Kuching.

SUPP president Dr Sim Kui Hian has also made promises to fight for more fund from the federal government to develop the said multi-storey carpark.

Yet, as it turns out, not only is the federal government not allocating the fund for building the said multi-storey carpark, but the federal government is allegedly profiteering from it by charging the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the costs of the project. This is adding salt to injury.

Given such a SUPP way of ‘fighting for more funds’, it is no wonder that life is getting harder for the people every day as the people are forced to finance these so-called development projects.

Not only are we forced to pay for these necessity like carparks in hospital, the government is, in addition, allegedly making extra profit off us on the project.

Furthermore, with this private-financing mode of development, ultimately the people will be paying extra, especially if such project were not done with minimal costs via an open tender system.

At the moment, many are complaining that the private carpark opposite the present SGH is charging expensive parking fees with RM3 for the first four hours or RM5 for a whole day. If that is considered expensive, then let us do some estimate of the possible parking rates to be charged by the builder/operator of this SGH multi-storey carpark.

We can make a comparison with the present Kuching South City Council (MBKS) parking fees rates and the Bukit Mata Kuching multi-storey carpark’s parking fee rates.

For MBKS, the rates is 20 sen for the first half hour, 50 sen for the subsequent half hour and

thereafter 80 sen for every half hour. At this rates, for a day (from 8am till 5pm), the parking fee is RM13.60 or RM14.40 (with GST) a day.

For the Bukit Mata Kuching multi-storey carpark, the rates are RM2 for the first two hours and thereafter RM2 for every hour. For a day, the parking fee is RM42.

How much will the private operator of this Kuching General Hospital Multi-storey carpark charge for the parking? That must also be the question for us to ask and for the government to answer.


CHONG CHIENG JEN is MP for Bandar Kuching, state assemblyperson for Kota Sentosa and Sarawak DAP chairperson.

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