Ulu Tinjar villagers urge relevant agencies to repair Long Lapok-Ulu Tinjar road

MIRI (Feb 15): Villagers from Ulu Tinjar are calling on the relevant agencies to carry out immediate repair works on the Long Lapok – Ulu Tinjar road which has been damaged since December last year.

The road is the lifeline to nine villages who depend on the road to connect with the outside world.

A villager from Long Teran Kanan A, Jonathan Anyi, 43 when contacted said the road had been damaged for quite some time and they had no other option except to use the “Perahu Tambang” from Long Lapok to get to their longhouse.

“It will cost RM20 per person and there will be extra charges for stuff that you carry with you. Imagine having a family of five, that means one will have to pay RM100 or more depending on how much stuff they carry with them,” he said.

Whenever one uses the perahu tambang, one will have no choice but to leave their cars in Lapok bazaar.

Jonathan said he is worried every time he has to leave his car in Lapok bazaar as it may be stolen.

“Not only that, the longer they take to repair the road, the more we suffer because we cannot take out our Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) to sell. The nearest loading ramp is in Lapok,” he lamented.

According to Jonathan, the last time he harvested his FFB was in December.

Majority of the villagers in these areas depend on oil palm as their main source of income and the damaged road has affected not just Jonathan.

Meanwhile, a Facebook user by the name of Richard Laing Andrew Richard took to Facebook to vent his frustration over the damaged road.

“To Chief Minister of Sarawak, I hope that you can help us villagers in Tinjar to repair the road from Lapok to Ulu Tinjar because the road is in terrible condition. We have complained many times to the people’s representative (N76 Marudi Datu Dr Penguang Manggil) but he has yet to respond.

“We have been suffering for nearly six months,” he said.

He also shared a few photographs showing the condition of the road.

Meanwhile, assemblyman for the constituency Datu Dr Penguang Manggil when contacted said RM700,000 had been approved by the Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg to carry out immediate repair on the stretch of the road which is damaged.

However, as for the long term measure, Penguang said the 122.6km stretch road would be upgraded under the Highland Development Agency (HDA) and Regional Corridor Development Authority (Recoda) under a project called “Proposed Improvement of Existing Road from Lapok Junction to Long Puah Tinjar, Miri division”.

“We wrote to the Chief Minister in December last year and it took a few days only for him to approve our application for the RM700,000 immediate fund to repair the stretch of the damaged road. The problem now is that getting all the machineries to the ground to carry out the repair work because of the non-persistent weather,” said Penguang.

The Assistant Minister of Local Government also lamented that lorries belonging to oil palm companies operating in the area had also caused damaged to the road.

When asked if he had tried to negotiate with the oil palm companies to find a win-win situation in regards to the condition of the road, Penguang said it goes without saying because they are the main user of the road.

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