KOTA KINABALU: Tawau member of parliament Datuk Chua Soon Bui has expressed her disappointment with the substandard work done on many of the infrastructure development projects allocated to Sabah under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP).
Chua when debating the Prime Minister's Department at committee stage in Parliament, pointed that the Auditor General's report showed that Sabah had managed to spend 94.4 per cent, or the equivalent of RM6.02 billion out of the total budget of RM6.3 billion under the 9MP for more than 34,485 projects.
Sadly, many of the infrastructure projects had poor finishing, were not according to specifications as well as had their fixtures such as doors and drainage pipes broken before they could be used, she lamented.
“All these failures or substandard developments do not benefit the people and waste public funds," the Sabah Progressive Party vice-president stressed.
She also said that some of the audited reports revealed that the RM83,839 agriculture tractor bought for Lahad Datu District Council since 2009 had never been used, the public toilets at Taman Aman 3 Lahad Datu which were built in August 2009 with an allocation of RM196,900 had their fixtures damaged and many wooden bridges repaired were not according to specifications in Semporna, thus endangering the public.
According to Chua, many projects under the Education Department on the building of teachers' quarters, building or repairs of classrooms, were of low standards and the fans installed were not functioning.
"The most alarming finding was that many local councils had failed to submit their accounts for audit," she stressed.
Chua also told the House that two marine boats, Kapal Jemalin M2B-Kapal Pemaliman in Sandakan and Kapal Tarek M47 in Kota Kinabalu under the port authority had been not used since 2008 and 2009 respectively.
