In an interview with FMT, Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen said claims that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government had cancelled the construction of these three bridge projects were wrong.
“We have checked the budget for 2018 and there was no allocation for these bridge projects,” he said.
As such, there was nothing for PH to cancel in the first place.
“It was merely a press statement by Najib Razak, who was the prime minister then. The budget was approved before PH came to power.”
Chong said BN had made a lot of promises.
He said whatever funds for road projects already allocated in the budget were spent by PH when it came to power.
Chong urged Sarawakians not to judge PH by its short 22 months in power in Putrajaya, comparing it to the 50 years BN had ruled Sarawak.
“For all reforms to take effect, it will take some time.
“As you can see, we managed to abolish the goods and services tax (GST) and successfully lowered the country’s inflation rate by an average of 1%. Now the inflation has gone up to 3%. These are the things PH has done,” he said.
Two days ago, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) leader Fadillah Yusof said GPS would never forget how PH had sought to delay the Pan Borneo Highway, including cancelling Phase 2 of the project.
He said work on three bridges had been cancelled and RM1 billion in funds to repair schools in Sarawak was not given.
Fadillah said another broken promise was 20% in oil royalty to be returned to Sarawak.
This had forced the GPS government to impose sales tax on Petronas, the works minister said.
In April, Selangau MP Baru Bian defended himself by dismissing claims that he had cancelled the three bridge projects when he was the works minister under the former PH government.
“It has come to my attention that certain parties, whether out of ignorance or spite, continue to slander me by saying that when I was works minister, I cancelled the Rambungan, Igan and Batang Lupar bridge projects and diverted the allocated funds to Kedah and Sabah.
“This is an outright fabrication made up without any basis.
“Let me say this once again. The RM900 million allocation for the three bridges was diverted to the northern part of Sarawak for the Sarawak-Sabah Link Road (SSLR),” he said.