Workshop held to speed up Pan Borneo Highway project

By Olivia Miwil - 

KOTA KINABALU: A workshop is being held to engage with all relevant stakeholders and to ensure they have a better understanding of each other to ensure smoother implementation of the multi-billion Pan Borneo Highway project in Sabah.
Organised by the Institute for Development Studies, its chairman Tan Sri Simon Sipaun said that Sabah is supposed to have a good highway that could expedite development progress in the state.
As of February, the highway project in Sabah has reached 12.4 per cent completion with RM609 million spent for the first phase.
“There are many factors that contribute to the delays on the completion of Pan Borneo Highway project.
“Among them include land acquisitions, state laws and financial constraints faced by the new government,” Simon said during the opening of the workshop.
He added that the workshop also saw non-governmental organisations (NGO) and activists taking part to share their insights related to impacts of the Pan Borneo Highway to flora and fauna, as well as the community.
“The aim of this workshop is to facilitate all stakeholders to be on the same page,” he added.
Meanwhile, during presentation, Borneo Highway PDP Sdn Bhd (PDP) acting chief executive officer Muhammad Fadzil Abdul Hamid echoed that land acquisitions at places where people live and graveyards are indeed one of the challenges for the construction of the roads.
“The designing work engaged nearly 50 different consultants and subcontractors, which 95 per cent are people of Sabah.
“In terms of construction, 12 packages out of 35 are already on the grounds, the remaining packages are pending the state government’s decision,” he said, adding the project delivery partner (PDP) has been given until 2021 to complete the first phase of the project.

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