BY JACQUELINE DAVID
KUCHING: A new giant Ibu Pertiwiku flag has been hoisted after the previous one fell into the Sarawak River during a storm last Monday.
The government has also come up with new Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in the event this happens again.
According to Deputy Minister of Utility and Telecommunication, Datuk Dr. Abdul Rahman Junaidi strong winds and a storm resulted in the flag’s cable breaking and the flag tearing away.
The replaced flag is of higher quality and the cable has been fixed for added durability, he said when met at the monthly flag-raising ceremony at Dataran Ibu Pertiwiku here Sunday.
He explained that for the flag raising ceremony every month a new flag will be put in place.
Should there be any recurrence of such incident the new SOPs call for a replacement on the same day or within 24 hours.
As for the quality of the flag, Dr Abdul Rahman who is also minister in-charge of Kuching North City Commission (DBKU), said the flag undergoes quality checks based on standards used by Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur and also in Istanbul, Turkey.
“The current Ibu Pertiwi flag that we use is obtained from China until we get our own suppliers or entrepreneurs who can produce these flags,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said the flag-raising ceremony has always been a meaningful event and hopes to attract more tourists to this event.
“This will be part of the tourist attractions, we should promote this as it is a special landmark for us, and the highest in Malaysia,” he said.
Also present at the event were Deputy Ministers of Infrastructure and Port Development Datuk Aidel Lariwoo and Datuk Majang Renggi and DBKU mayor, Hilmy Othman.
