Daily Express Subscriber
Sign in to your account.

The Public Works Department (PWD) will step up efforts to tend to the verges on Jalan Bundusan, while City Hall has vowed to do the same for the reserve land on either side of Lorong Bunga Matahari 1.

This follows feedback from a Penampang motorist and another from Likas about the lack of maintenance carried out on the greenery growing along both stretches.

The former driver decried the unkempt condition of the roundabout at the intersection between Jalan Lintan, Lorong Bundusan Villa and Jalan Bundsan.

He said one could barely make out the miniature Christmas tree in the middle of the roundabout because of all the long grass growing there.

The plastic tree was most likely placed there by some spirited Netizen, following the current trend on social media to spruce up roundabouts around the State with this decoration.

The motorist was under the impression that the task of trimming the grass on the Jalan Bundusan roundabout fell to the Municipal Council and wrongly called out this agency out for collecting rates from the public for a service which was not forthcoming.

His counterpart in Likas, meanwhile, bemoaned the traffic hazards posed by the long grass on Lorong Bunga Matahari 1, saying that it made it difficult to manoeuvre around the sharp corners of the stretch, let alone make out any oncoming vehicles coming round the bend.

Their grievances were forwarded to the Council, PWD and City Hall. 

A Council spokesman shot down the suggestion that it had been negligent in its responsibilities to deal with the grass on the roundabout, saying that it had no jurisdiction over the structure.

“Jalan Bundusan is not listed in the Council’s road-register,” he said. “As such, we are not liable for attending to any irregularities involving the traffic structures on the stretch, including the roundabout in question. 

“It is unfair to hold us accountable for the overgrown grass in this part of the Municipality.”

He said the Council was helpless to intervene on the driver’s concerns.

“We have apprised the PWD of this matter. This is the most we can do as Jalan Bundusan is maintained by the Department.”

A PWD spokesman confirmed that the stretch, which extended for 3½kilometres between the Jalan Penempatan and Jalan Penampang junctions, belonged to the Department.

He said the greenery on the road-shoulders was dealt with on a monthly basis by one of the agency’s concessionaires.

“The grass on the verges, as well as the roundabout, is generally trimmed in the last week of the month, per the firm’s maintenance cycle,” he said.

“Nevertheless, any complaints which crop up even beyond this period are dealt with accordingly.”

In this regard, he said, the roundabout was attended to on the same day that the PWD was contacted by the media.

“Three of the company’s workers cut the grass on the structure and, then, loaded the trimmings onto the back of an open-truck which was deployed for this purpose.” 

Where Lorong Bunga Matahari 1 was concerned, a spokeswoman for City Hall’s Landscaping Department said its Grass-Cutting Unit dealt with the verges on the road earlier in December. 

“Ten Landscaping personnel trimmed the grass and then cleaned up the trimmings along the road which spans a distance of some 509metres,” she said.

“The cuttings were transported away by one of our open trucks.”

The spokeswoman said one of its officers inspected the road a few days later to ensure that the greenery on the verges had been attended to as they should. 

“This grass in the common areas is cut done according to schedule. Weather permitting, we generally try to attend to the roads in this part of Likas in the second week of each month.”