Shahelmey: Over half of Sabah’s roads past lifespan, RM285m allocated for major repairs on four key routes (2025)

KOTA KINABALU, April 15 — More than half of the roads in Sabah have exceeded their intended lifespan, said State Works Minister Datuk Ir Shahelmey Yahya.

He said the economic development driven by the government’s achievements has spurred high economic activity, and when these roads exceed their life cycles, such activities coupled with increased traffic flow, overloaded vehicles and weather factors pose a set of challenges to his ministry.

The minister explained that normally, his side would carry out patching or heavy patching on roads with potholes, but for roads that have exceeded their lifespan and whose structure has been disrupted, patching is not the solution but rather, an overall resurfacing or rehabilitation is required.

“Realising this fact, the state government in January approved a special allocation of RM285 million to implement repair works on four main roads utilising the cold in-place pavement recycling (CIPR) method.

“These four roads are Jalan Nangon Paitah Kanibongan, Jalan Kanibongan, Jalan Langkon-Pitas and Jalan Sapulut-Kalabakan.

“The works would take around 18 months to complete, starting in early March this year and expected to be completed at the end of August 2026.

“Maybe next year, we will carry out such works for other state roads.

“As for federal roads, we have informed the federal government and submitted our request for maintenance and upgrading allocations for roads that have exceeded their lifespan,” he said during a state assembly question-answer session here yesterday.

Shahelmey was responding to a question by Senallang assemblyman Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, who asked on the operation and maintenance of roads and bridges in Sabah as well as the companies appointed to carry out the works and their progress.

He added that last year, more than 2,000 non-conformance reports (NCR) were issued and successfully closed for works that were not in accordance with the scope and needed to be re-done, and his ministry will continue to monitor from time to time.

Earlier, he said that this year the state government had allocated RM450 million while its federal counterpart RM675 million for road maintenance works, whereby the state’s road network consists of state roads and federal roads.

The minister said the federal Works Ministry had appointed a concession company on September 1, 2003 to maintain federal roads in Sabah under the State Works Department’s (JKR) jurisdiction, for a period of 15 years until August 31, 2018.

The federal government then extended the contract for 10 years, starting from September 1, 2018 until August 31, 2028.

As for paved state roads under JKR, the state government had appointed one concession company for maintenance works on September 1, 2004 until August 31, 2019, for a period of 15 years.

The state government then agreed to extend the timeline for 15 more years, starting from September 1, 2019 until August 31, 2034.

Aside from that, three contractor companies were appointed by the state government to maintain paved JKR roads in rural areas for five years, starting from June 2023 until 2028.

Thirty-two contractor companies have also been appointed by the state government to maintain unpaved JKR roads according to areas and districts.