Warisan Says It Did Not Cancel Pan Borneo Projects

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Chen Ket Chuin
KOTA KINABALU (Oct 9): Parti Warisan (Warisan) did not cancel any local Pan Borneo Highway projects during its administration, said Warisan Supreme Council member Chen Ket Chuin @ KC.
Chen clarified that the decision to terminate the Project Delivery Partner (PDP) system was made entirely by the federal government, not the Warisan-led state government.
He said while the then state government under Warisan president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal had agreed and participated in discussions, the formal authority to terminate the PDP rested solely with Putrajaya.
“Under the PDP model, a large company appointed by the federal government, Borneo Highway PDP Sdn Bhd, was paid to manage the project in Sabah,” said Chen.
“The company received a 5.5 per cent management fee based on the total project cost of about RM12 billion — meaning nearly RM700 million was paid just for coordination and administrative work, not for actual road construction.”
Chen said the Auditor-General’s Report later confirmed that the PDP system was deeply flawed, as the company did not have its own engineers and had relied on officers from the Sabah Public Works Department (JKR) for technical work.
“Some contractors under this system were financially unqualified and lacked road construction experience.
The arrangement added unnecessary bureaucracy, inflated costs, and slowed down progress,” he said.
Due to these inefficiencies, Chen said the federal government under then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng decided in April 2019 to terminate the PDP contract.
He added that the termination was confirmed by the company itself in a Bursa Malaysia filing, which stated that the termination would take effect five months later.
“After the PDP termination, the Pan Borneo project was handed back to JKR Sabah for direct government management. This allowed for greater transparency, lower costs, and more effective state-level supervision,” said Chen.
He stressed that none of the ten road packages were cancelled, and all local contractors were allowed to continue their work under the same federal funding.
“The cancellation was never about stopping development or taking away local work. It was about ending a wasteful, federally controlled system that benefited one large company and restoring control to Sabah’s Public Works Department,” he said.
According to Chen, the move was meant to ensure that every ringgit spent would benefit the people of Sabah — not outsiders or middlemen — while giving the state full control over planning, land acquisition, tender approvals and coordination with federal agencies.
“It was a chance for the state to manage the Pan Borneo project directly and more transparently. However, the GRS-PH government has failed to turn that opportunity into real progress,” he said.
Chen claimed that the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) government lacked the capability and efficiency to manage such a large-scale project effectively.
He said instead of accelerating progress under the conventional system, the project stalled due to poor coordination, slow decision-making, and repeated delays in restructuring and re-approvals.
“Many work packages were suspended or postponed, while tendering and contract awards dragged on far longer than expected,” he said, adding that unresolved land acquisition and utility relocation issues further delayed physical works.
“Several road packages that had been paused were only re-approved or awarded in 2023. The slow pace of procurement and administrative approvals left contractors waiting months just to begin or resume work,” Chen said.
“In short, the PDP termination was meant to empower Sabah and reduce wastage. But because of GRS and PH’s weak management, poor coordination, and lack of capability, that opportunity was wasted — and now they are blaming Warisan for problems caused by their own inefficiency,” he added. - borneopost

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