KUCHING, Oct 22 — The process of planning, tendering and appointment of contractors for the RM150 million for Kuching flood mitigation project is expected to be finalised by next month, Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii assured today.

He said the detailed designing process including land acquisition and investigation of the federal-funded project will be carried out from December 2019 to December 2020.

“The physical construction will start in 2021 and is expected to take about four years,” he said, adding that he was given the updates on the flood mitigation project by the state Drainage and Irrigation Department recently.

He said he will be monitoring and pushing for the process to be expedited so that it will not cause too much inconvenience to the public.

“Although, even with this project itself, it may not solve all the flash flood issues in Kuching City as more needs to be done including more flood mitigation projects along Sungai Maong Kanan and Sungai Maong Kiri is still needed.

Yii said the long mitigation project is a long-term measure to solve the problems, especially the chronic flash flood issues that residents in many areas in the City suffer from for many years.

He said this is an issue which he has raised in Parliament to resolve the long standing flash floods in some low lying areas especially around Sarawak General Hospital, Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg, Jalan Batu Lintang, Jalan Tong Wei Tah, Jalan Foochow, Jalan Laksamana and Jalan Ong Tiang Swee.

He said there will also be projects to build flood barriers along Sungai Gersik, Sungai Sinjan and also dredging and deepening of Sungai Tengah and Sungai Minjab.