The Sarawak government has assured that the second bridge over the Sungai Sarawak in Kuching will be completed by Aug 31.

Construction of the facility, costing RM40 million, was originally scheduled to have been completed by October 2000.

The project involves the construction of a six-lane balanced cantilever bridge and a four-lane new road to link the bridge to Jalan Demak, together with toll facilities.

The privatised project was awarded to Kuching-based Zalpoint Corporation as contractor and concessionaire for a 33-year period.

The state paid for part of the project by allocating a plot of prime land on which the Old Tanah Puteh Port had stood previously. Part of the land now houses commercial buildings.

Land woes

Malaysiakini

understands that there was initial wrangling over valuation of the land alienated to the company, but that this was resolved. Work on the bridge started about three years ago.

The company then ran into difficulty due to the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, as banks generally reduced lending. Its problems were compounded by land acquisition procedures that involved native landowners on the north bank.

Construction work had stopped about 5km downstream from Kuching Waterfront, leaving unsightly concrete hanging over part of the river.

In the state assembly last month, Infrastructure Development and Communications Minister Wong Soon Koh disclosed that the project was about 82 percent completed.

"The revised completion date is Aug 31, 2003. Construction work, which stopped for some time, has now resumed," he said.

He added that the land-related issues which had caused the delay had been resolved.

The minister also revealed that with restructuring and the change of management (in Zalpoint

Corporation) and the involvement of public-listed Zecon Engineering Bhd, "the progress of work has picked up and the project is to completed according to the revised schedule".