Extracted from Malaysiakini

Bakun dam more than half-completed

Oct 21, 05 5:38am

Malaysia's controversial Bakun dam is progressing well and is more than half completed, a report said Friday, after claims the dam needed cash injections and could be delayed by 18 months.

"We reached 118-metre elevation yesterday out of the total height of the dam which is 205 metres," Sime Engineering managing director Mohamad Shukri Baharom told the New Straits Times.

"We have 2,000 people at the site working 24 hours a day. There are also 700 workers from China working very hard," he said. "As a contractor, we are committed to completing the job."

Last month a report said completion of the dam could be delayed by 18 months, while the government is to loan millions of dollars to the main contractor to offset cash-flow problems.

Sources told the Edge financial weekly that the government had approved the loan of RM200 million (US$53.05 million) to "ease the cash-flow situation" for the contractor, a consortium of seven companies.

Delays and setbacks

The New Straits Times said that Sime has set aside RM130 million to cover any potential losses but does not expect to make more provisions while submissions were made to the government for reimbursement of cost overruns and an extension of time.

No further details were available.

The dam project in eastern Sarawak state on Borneo island has been dogged with delays and setbacks since its approval in 1993. It had been slated to be completed by August 2007.

The dam, which involves flooding an area the size of Singapore, has attracted fierce criticism because of its harmful impact on the environment and the fact that 10,000 residents have already had to evacuate the project site. - AFP