EIGHT of the 14 stretches of the Pan Borneo Highway in Sarawak where construction work is ongoing have been categorised as “sick” by the Public Works Department (PWD) in its recent physical progress by sections report.

These sections of the RM21 billion 1,077km highway are:

• Bukit Begunan and Sri Aman sections, on the Pantu junction to Batang Skrang stretch under work package contract (WPC) 4,

• Sarikei section on the Sungai Awik bridge-Bintangor junction stretch (WPC 6),

• Sibu section on the Bintangor junction to Julau, Sibu airport and the Sungai Kua bridge (WPC 7),

• Bintulu and Tatau sections in WPC 9 from the Sungai Arip bridge to the Bintulu airport junction,

• Niah section on the Bakun junction to the Sungai Tangap stretch (WPC 10), and

• Beluru and Lambir sections on Sungai Tangap to the Pujut link road (WPC 11).

The section most ailing, as on the latest report on May 25, is the length of the highway from Sungai Tangap to the Pujut link road in Miri in the northern part of the state. The work is under WPC 11.

The initial projection for the area at Beluru would be 99% completed by May but the actual progress was only 89%, the report stated.

The slow going has now pushed its projected completion date of July 30 to September.

Even then, the PWD report stated the “completion” would not include the all-important “road furniture” – the guardrail.

On the Lambir section, work was even slower.

The initial projection was that it would be 96% completed by May but the delay meant it was only 81% completed.

The estimation that work would be completed by July 24 was abandoned and the new date would in November.

Work on the highest elevation of the highway, the Bukit Begunan section – WPC 4 Pantu junction to Batang Skrang – had been set back by landslides which required the project’s structure to be redesigned using different building materials.

The peak of the hill is 195m above sea level.

The projection was that the section would be 99% completed by May and completed on June 20 but the forced redesigning of that section meant it was only 93% completed.

The anticipated completion date based on remaining work is now set to be in September.

To date, 11 out of 25 total sections are completed and six out of 14 uncompleted sections are on schedule, the report also stated.

The Pan Borneo Highway project started 60 years ago soon after the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

It started as a road network to connect Sabah and Sarawak, with Brunei and Kalimantan.

In Sabah and Sarawak, the road was a twisted, narrow two-lane “trunk road” with many potholes because most stretches of the highway were built with standards as low as JKR R3 design – road designed for a speed limit of 70kph whose minimum lane width is 3m.

After years of demanding to upgrade the trunk road to a highway, it was only in 2014, when Adenan Satem was the chief minister of Sarawak, that Putrajaya agreed to upgrade the Pan Borneo Highway to a four-lane divided highway.

The Sarawak portion of the highway starts from the coastal village of Telok Melano in Sematan and ends at its northernmost district, Lawas. – June 18, 2023.