Chong: New Bomba station serving Kota Sentosa, Batu Kitang and Batu Kawa ready by March 2025

KUCHING (July 13): A new Fire and Rescue (Bomba) station will be ready to serve the Kota Sentosa, Batu Kitang and Batu Kawa areas earliest by March next year, revealed Stampin MP Chong Chieng Jen.

The Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman in a statement said this following a visit to the new station located at the Batu Kitang light industrial zone.

State Bomba deputy director Tiong Ling Hii was among those accompanying him on the visit.

According to Chong, the project was approved by Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming during a courtesy call on the minister in Putrajaya in January last year.

He pointed out the project involved the purchasing of an industrial semi-detached building and conversation thereof a Bomba station, and said this was a faster and more cost-effective way to have a new Bomba station in the area.

“Nga approved the project there and then, and the whole acquisition process got to kick off. In fact, Sarawak Bomba had sought for the new station back in 2021 but did not receive any response from the government then.

“Therefore, where the government changed hands at the end of 2022, Sarawak Bomba took the initiative to quickly request for the project in 2023 and immediately got approval from the new Housing and Local Government minister,” he said.

Chong quoted Tiong as saying that after several rounds of negotiation, the developer of the light industrial building finally agreed to sell the semi-detached building to Bomba and signed the agreement in June this year.

“Bomba within a short time prepared the architecture plan for the renovation works to be carried out. The tender for the renovation project will be called in one or two months’ time and it is expected the new Bomba station will be up and running by March or April next year,” he said.

He said the project is scheduled to take about 26 months from scratch to operation if everything runs smoothly, adding it was reasonably fast.

“As I was informed by Tiong, there are still some minor administrative issues to be sorted out before the Bomba station can be operational.

“Such issue invovles both the state and federal agencies. To that, I will give my assistance to expedite the resolution of such administrative problem,” he said.