Consultant To Be Appointed To Speed Up Pan Borneo Highway Says Fadillah

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The project management consultant will help the PWD to expedite the Sarawak side of the Pan Borneo Highway project. (Bernama pic)KUCHING: A project management consultant will be appointed soon to expedite the Sarawak side of the Pan Borneo Highway project, which has been delayed following the Covid-19 pandemic and change of government, said Senior Works Minister Fadillah Yusof.
He said the consultant would assist the State Public Works Department (JKR Sarawak) to monitor the project, as well as carry out verification processes and other related tasks that could speed up the 786km highway project, involving 12 work packages, which is only 51% completed so far.
“Hopefully, the appointment will be announced by January next year.
“The appointment is more or less confirmed but we are waiting for the finance ministry to finalise it,” he told reporters after attending a gathering with Sarawak media editors here today.
Senior Works Minister Fadillah Yusof.According to him, the plan to appoint a consultant had been justified by the fact that JKR Sarawak would not be able to cope with the sheer volume of work involved to complete the projects, which had been approved by the federal and state governments.
He hoped that with the appointment, the project would be expedited and 70% completed by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, Fadillah said his ministry was working with the housing and local government ministry to encourage the adoption of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) concept in designing building plans.
He said that although the ministry planned to make it compulsory for the BIM concept to be used in the submission of building plans in the future, it would not be so soon as there were not many architects qualified to do so.
“In Sarawak, we are working closely with Swinburne University of Technology here, together and the CIDB (Construction Industry Development Board), to create a BIM centre.” - FMT

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