KUCHING: Amendments on the Sarawak Building Ordinance (SBO) 1994 will likely be discussed in next year’s State Legislative Assembly sitting.
Local Government and Housing Ministry permanent secretary Bakrie Zaini said this in a press conference yesterday here at Imperial Hotel.
A one-and-a-half day workshop on the review of the amendment was attended by 77 participants from the Land and Survey Department, Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba), Malaysian Institute of Architects Sarawak Chapter (PAMSC), Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM) Sarawak branch, and many more.
“The objective of the workshop was to review the 25-year-old ordinance to make sure it is adaptable in today’s situation,” he stated.
For instance, the issuance of occupation permit (OP) will be revisited in the workshop as he stated that the ministry has received two cases which involved the OP issuance to the property owner’s name whereby it should not be issued to the person but to the building.
“If one is to sell a lot or building, the OP would not be issued to the person’s name but to the building itself,” he explained.
One case that was presented to the ministry involved an OP issued by a council under the landowner to a bankrupt developer whereby the original land owner was granted custody of the development and completed it by themselves.
This angered the developer, leading them to accuse the council on integrity aspect and collusion.
“Situations like these are why we need to update the ordinance to adapt to its current scenario,” he said.
When asked whether the amendments affect construction and purchasing cost, Bakrie said that it will not affect the costs and instead will try to simplify the process since everything will be digitalised in the future.
“There is a lot of technological building materials in today’s world and the ordinance implemented in 1994 whereby majority of its system or sections are outdated needs to be reviewed.
“We will try to simplify the process and currently we are looking into the Sarawak government’s digital initiative on e-submission whereby building plans can be submitted online,” he said.
He then informed that the initiative on e-submission is currently in its final phase and once it is completed, they will be test running on the councils by next year.
Through this online submission, building plans submitted can be traced to which company or agency is holding the plans.
Bakrie was then asked to comment on Housing and Local Government Ministry Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin’s statement on Sarawak to allocate suitable land to build more houses in the state, to which he said that Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian will be giving a statement on it soon.
