Lo, Aziz hurling baseless accusations

suppadmin | March 19, 2019

Batu Kitang Assemblyman, Lo Khere Chiang accused Aziz of hurling baseless accusations against him and the MPP for not issuing an Occupational Permit (OP) for the temporary Industrial Built System ( IBS) school block for SK Haji Baki.

He said it only goes to show how ignorant Aziz is of the situation on the ground and how one can simply spin and fling untruthful stories around just for the sake of confusing the public in order to gain cheap publicity.

“The previous government approved RM20million. So an Industrial Based System (IBS) school was built to house students temporarily so that the old school can be demolished and a new one constructed over the land where the old school block now stands. That was what the approved Rm20million was intended for- a smaller but temporary IBS block and a new permanent school block. That is why that IBS school block cost Rm2.93million, a portion of the allocated Rm$20million.

Aziz is very ignorant because he does not know the purpose of the IBS school. He is saying that the previous govt cheated folks by building an IBS school instead of a proper building. The temporary IBS school has to be built so that the students can have a place to study in when they demolish the present old dilapidated timber school block. They have to build the new school block over the land where the old school block now stands so where do the students go if there is no temporary IBS school block?”

The IBS, explained Lo, was implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education is just a building system which is supposed to speed up the job beause of the industrialised building system. The Federal ministry of education implemented the project but failed to complete it as the contractor did not do a proper job. Work was not completed and so the supervising architect and engineer have not submitted the Occupation Permit (OP) for approval.

However, he said there are a lot of defects, so much so that the consultants are not willing to apply for an occupation permit from the council.

“It is malicious of Aziz to blame me and MPP for not issuing the OP when the consulting architect and engineer are not willing to submit any applications for OP as it will be against their conscience and credibility to do so. He, Aziz needs to check his facts properly before accusing MPP of not approving OP. The council and myself are not to be blamed for the horrendous performance of the contractor,” he said.

The Ministry of Education, Malaysia, for some reason, has appointed a West Malaysian contractor to do the job. Sarawak has so many capable contractors and the Federal government has to appoint a West Malaysian contractor to do a simple building job?

In fact, while waiting for the IBS school to be completed, I had to allocate Rm50k from my RTP funds for the rewiring of the classrooms in this 50-year-old dilapidated timber school building as sparks were seen on wires during rainy days.The imminent danger to our students and teachers is obvious and hence the immediate allocation of the Rm50k was a no brainer for me.

So what is purpose of Aziz’s donation of Rm5k on Chong’s behalf? Is it just so that Aziz can take a picture to gain cheap publicity when your West Malaysian PH leaders have axed between tens of thousands for approved projects in Haji Baki? Lo asked.