KUCHING: More than 80 families in Kampung Bumbok extension are still without electricity supply.
They have been in the dark for more than 10 years now although the village is just 19 kilometres away from the Kuching City.
These are new houses built after the second phase of the Rural Electricity Supply Scheme (RESS) extended to the village in the early 90s.
The first phase was implemented in the 70s.
“The villagers were promised several times by the government to extend RESS to these houses but up to today it remains promises,” said the village’s Development and Security Committee member, Mortima Yorke Gohe.
He said the application for the project was first forwarded to the Ministry of Public Utilities in 2000 and another four letters was forwarded in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Motima said the replies they received from the ministry was in 2004, 2007, 2008 and August 2010 respectively but none of the letter from the Ministry of Public Utilities confirmed that the proposed project has been approved and implemented.
He said in the first letters from the Ministry of Development dated 22 December 2004 stated that the application has been received from JKKK Kampung Bumbok and has been included in the RESS list.
“The second letter received from the same ministry dated 17 April January 2007 also stated that the project will be considered for implementation under the 9th Malaysia Plan while the third letter dated July 30, 2008 stated that the project is under consideration to be included under RESS in the 9th Malaysia Plan,” said Mortima.
He said the fourth letter dated August 12, 2010 from the Ministry of Public Utilities stated that the proposed RESS project for the village has been put in the database of the ministry and to be considered to be implementation in 2011/2012 but depending on approval from the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development, Malaysia.
“There was no concrete decision on the approval of the project. It just mentioned that the application has been put in the database but did not state that the project has been approved.
“We are already tired of receiving empty promises and we really hope that this time the government will fulfill their promise to us,” said Mortima.
Mortima said the villagers urged the their representative Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister Department Tan Joo Phoi and Deputy Work Minister Datuk Yong Khoon Seng to act to bring the project to the village.
He said the villagers has to depend on generator sets for the electricity supply while students who were given laptops by the Federal Government has to charge their computer’s battery at their relatives house.
“It’s troublesome and we really hope the government extend the project to us because to extend the supply individually (not scheme) will cost a lot of money, which the villagers couldn’t afford,” he added.
To connect the supply to one house would cost more than RM7,000, said Mortima.
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