Additional RM100 Million Allocated To Maintain, Fix Federal Roads

Federal road repairs conducted by the Public Works Ministry (KKR). (Image: The Star)

The government has reportedly approved an additional budget allocation worth RM100 million for the maintenance and repair of federal roads across Peninsular Malaysia, reports local newswire Bernama recently.

According to Deputy Works Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan, said funds will be utilised for periodic maintenance work on pavement and non-pavement roads. He adds that RM70 million will be used for 79 periodic pavement maintenance work, with the remaining RM30 million allocated for 200 on-pavement periodic maintenance works.

The Deputy Minister clarified that pavement road maintenance works involved repairing damaged pavements and road structures using milling and paving, overlay, road structure reconstruction and resurfacing.

Non-pavement periodic maintenance, on the other hand, covers repairing road assets other than pavements and road structures. This includes painting road lines, maintaining bridges, fixing drains, as well as repairing signs and barriers.

“For the southern zone, which consists of Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka, we are offering 18 periodic pavement works worth RM15.06 million, and 36 non-pavement works worth RM6.5 million,” added Datuk Ahmad Maslan. Altogether, this represent a fifth of the total additional funds allocated.

The Deputy Minister even highlighted that Johor state received the largest allocation totalling at RM11.75 million. He reportedly confirmed this whilst speaking at the Peninsular Malaysia-Southern Zone Federal Road Maintenance Programme 2024.

From which, RM8.05 million will be spent on 10 periodic pavement road maintenance works.  For non-pavement periodic maintenance, the state received RM3.7 million for 36 maintenance works.

Whilst this is a welcomed initiative, it’s worth highlighting that the additional allocation won’t rectify everything – more will be needed. Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi had previously raised that RM4 billion was needed to annually maintain all federal road stretches in the country, but only RM1 billion has been allocated annually for decades instead.