LABUAN, June 7 — The long-standing proposal to build a bridge to link Labuan to mainland Sabah should be given serious attention because of its potential economic benefits to the island, said Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa.

"We had a lengthy discussion this morning, and I visited the proposed site to understand the potential of having the bridge.

"But as I mentioned earlier, let’s not talk big about the whole thing and later on you may not be able to deliver. Nevertheless, we accept the fact that the bridge construction is something that should be given serious attention,” he told reporters after presenting appointment letters to the new leaders of the Labuan People’s Representative Council (MPP) at Wisma Perbadanan Labuan today.

Annuar was on a three-day working visit to Labuan, his first since being appointed minister in March this year.

He said there might be issues like costing and technical matters to be resolved which would need close cooperation between the Sabah and federal governments.

Annuar said all these aspects must be thoroughly studied before the project could be implemented.

He stressed the need for an indepth study of Labuan’s development plans in line with its status as a federal territory.

"I would like to look at the Labuan development plans from a bigger context…including the government’s early aspiration of turning Labuan into a federal territory,” he said.

Meanwhile, Annuar also said the vacant post of Labuan Corporation (LC) chairman would be filled soon.

"The chairman’s post was neither terminated nor cancelled, but rather all political appointments by the previous Pakatan Harapan government were automatically dropped after Perikatan Nasional formed the government,” he said.

The post was previously held by Parti Amanah Negara member Datuk Seri Amir Hussien.

"The appointment for the new LC chairman, who is from Labuan, has been made known to the prime minister, and he will decide on the candidate,” he added. — Bernama