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PETALING JAYA: Sabah PKR Youth has urged the authorities to investigate several allegedly failed projects implemented in Sabah during Warisan president Shafie Apdal’s tenure as federal rural and regional development minister.
State PKR youth communications director Fekirie Gobet said these projects, worth about RM1.5 billion in total, were carried out between 2010 and 2015 but had not fulfilled their intended purpose.
Shafie was rural and regional development minister from 2009 to 2015 under then prime minister Najib Razak.
While he did not list all of the projects, Fekirie said one of them was a RM93 million water supply system for Pulau Gaya, which was probed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in 2017.
PAC found that the water reticulation project had not achieved the original objectives of the government as it was not fully operational and failed to meet the needs of the residents.
“This clearly shows weak planning, including the absence of early and in-depth studies and evaluations, causing a waste of public funds. The biggest question is: why was this project worth RM93 million done hastily?” Fekirie said in a statement.
Another controversial project Fekirie cited was the RM45 million water treatment plant in Semporna, where Shafie has been MP since 1995, which he said could not fulfil the locals’ water supply demand.
“All this leakage (involving projects worth RM1.5 billion) involved the development of infrastructure in Sabah, particularly the supply of electricity and water, as well as roads.
“These issues reflect serious weaknesses in the planning and implementation of infrastructure projects in Sabah.
“Sabah PKR Youth is of the view that this needs to be reassessed because it involves public funds which should have been used to develop infrastructure for the rakyat,” he said.