Over the weekend, a Facebook post made by the Sarawak Public Works Department (JKR) had gone viral for all the wrong reasons. They recently completed a simple wooden jetty at Kampung Mutap in Bekenu, Sarawak.
The inauguration ceremony of the completed project was held last week on Wednesday (6th April). In the social media post, they also informed that the project had cost a whopping RM50k! Needless to say, many were left appalled by the revelation.
It’s understood that the project started on 7th March, and was finished way ahead of the schedule on 1st April. The jetty was constructed to replace the old jetty that can no longer be used. “With the completion of the jetty, it will make it easier for the residents to carry out their daily activities. Especially, during floods and high tides as the villagers will use the river route as an alternative route to the Bekenu Market,” they revealed in the post.
The replies section has been flooded with netizens questioning the breakdown of the project cost. In this case, most of them stated that given the amount of money allocated, the jetty could have been better built. One netizen sarcastically remarked, “For real? RM50k for this project? I think it’s better to ask the boy scouts to build it for them.”
Here are some of the comments left by these netizens:
In response to the massive backlash from the public, JKR Sarawak later posted a press statement detailing the chronology of events leading up to the implementation of the aforementioned project on its official Facebook. You can read it here:
Sources: VOCKET, Oh My Media.
