Sarawakians may end up paying double if not triple the parking fees when the Sarawak General Hospital’s (SGH) long-promised multi-storey carpark is eventually built.

The long -awaited multi-layer carpark for SGH is a promise made 10 years ago and after a total of five elections later, both general elections and state elections combined, not even a single ground-breaking ceremony been held until now. The said project has been used as an election candy year after year but until now all it has remained are promises.

In the parliamentary reply given to the MP of Stampin, technically the project in principle has been approved by the ministry on Nov 22, 2013. Even by today’s standards, for a promise made 10 years ago and only to be approved in 2013 is a very long delay, what more to say until now the construction of the project is still nowhere to be seen.

The RM351 million project will be based on the ‘Public Private Partnership-BLMT’ model (PPP-BLMT), construction includes a day-care center block (pusat rawatan harian), pathology lab, blood bank, two carpark complexes and a medi-hotel.

Such a price for the entire project is well over the bar if we were to compare it to the upcoming RM130 million KPJ hospital in Kuching. The new 300-bed KPG Kuching hospital will have the latest medical services - orthopaedic and traumatology, cardiology and heart surgery, chemotherapy and radiation oncology including plastic surgery.

The ministry needs to come clean on how they came to a RM351million conclusion and are accountable to the public on how the PPP-BLMT model works. For the model to works, fees will be charged for the usage of the carpark. At such a high project price, it is almost certain that the fees would be double if not triple the rate of currently available private parking at the vicinity of SGH at a flat rate of RM5 (excluding the Goods and Services Tax or GST) for the whole day.

The minister owes it to people of Sarawak for a promise which seems to take forever to be fulfilled. The deputy minister even agreed that of all the hospitals he had visited, SGH is one of the worst in terms of its overcapacity and over usage of its Emergency Room. The building of the multi-storey carpark should be the outmost priority and construction should begin immediately without having the burden of other extended units.

Focus on just building the carpark

Again why must the government get involved with the commercial aspects by building the 160-room medi hotel, furthermore at such an exorbitant price? They should leave such an initiative to the private sector. As such the cost needed should be significantly less if we were to purely focus on just building the carpark.

If we were to base on the estimation given by MP of bandar Kuching before, the 1,750 parking bays carpark should cost only at RM30.6 million or at most RM35 million if 15 percent is to be allocated for contingency expenses. The estimation was based on quantity surveying and the local council’s standard measurement.

And again according to his estimation, if we were to base on Malaysia’s Construction Industrial Guideline, the costs of building the 160-room medi hotel at three-star hotel equivalent is approximately RM25.6 million. For a budget hotel, such cost can be even cheaper by at least 30 percent which is approximately RM18 million.

Therefore, based on such an argument, the total cost for the 1,750 bays carpark and a 160-rooms, three-star hotel equivalent medi-hotel will only amount to a mere RM60.6 million or lower if a budget hotel equivalent were to be considered. That only leaves the remaining RM290.4 million for a day-care centre block (pusat rawatan harian), pathology lab and blood bank. Such an amount is way higher if compared to the new RM130 million, 300-bed modern KPG Kuching hospital!

Therefore at RM35 million only for the carpark, there is no excuse at all for the government to further delay the project but instead should expedite the construction and provide free parking at SGH. In the end what are the real causes behind this decade-old promise? Obviously it is the ridiculous over-inflated high price that allow the alleged BN crony company to rip off the people of Sarawak.

JULIAN TAN KOK PING is the MP for Stampin.