By Brendon Beliku
Brendon Beliku is a Regional Corporate Mobility Coordinator for an international corporate immigrationfirm specializing in East Malaysian immigration regulatory compliance. He is also an independent public policy analyst.
KOTA KINABALU: In 1978, The Police released their classic hit Roxanne, pleading: “You don’t have to put on thered light.”Nearly half a century later, thousands of frustrated residents traversing the high densitySapangar corridor from Kg. Dato, Tebobon to University Condominium Apartment 2 (UCA 2) are living that exact nightmare.
Along this stretch, the structural and literal red lights are permanently flashing, signaling a decade old monument to municipal inertia, broken promises and fragmented governance.
What should be a fluid suburban artery feeding the Greater Kota Kinabalu ecosystem has instead become an unlivable bottleneck.
The Four Way Bureaucratic Paralysis The primary excuse for this ten year decay is always “jurisdictional boundaries.”
In reality, it is a maste rclass in cross departmental buck-passing:DBKK: Continues to greenlight high density residential footprints, namely the sprawling UCA 2 complex; while utterly failing to mandate or execute matching municipal convenience upgrades or pedestrian mapping.JKR:
Treats the compounding Tuaran Bypass or Tebobon traffic with rigid, reactive delays. Road synchronization and expansion have stalled while vehicle volumes have multipliedexponentially.JTU: Keeps vital road widening reserves paralyzed in sluggish, archaic land acquisition and zoning loops.JPS: Offers fragmented, piecemeal drainage planning.
As concrete replaces soil, inadequate monsoon drains turn seasonal rains into instant flash flood blockades around Kg. Dato, forcing drivers to deploy hazard lights as public roads transform into rivers.
When subsurface sewerage frameworks fail under the weight of population density and surface infrastructure drowns in a downpour, it is definitive proof that these four agencies are operating in blind, unaccountable silos.
An Ultimatum for Inanam and Sepanggar.
This structural decay has survived multiple changes of government, but the clock has run out.
The buck stops squarely at the desks of our elected representatives, who can no longer afford to play the role of passive observers.
To The Current Representative of ADUN N.18 Inanam: Heighten administrative posturing ring shollow when your constituency is actively choking on systemic traffic gridlock and failing sanitation.
Residents do not need performative public relations or routine site visits; they require you to aggressively weaponise your legislative mandate to jar DBKK and JTU out of their deep bureaucratic slumber.
To The Current Representative of MP P.171 Sepanggar: Grandiose macroeconomic visions ring hollow when the basic municipal infrastructure in your own backyard has been left to rot for over a decade.
Federal clout is meaningless if a premier residential and labor corridor in Sapangar is treated as a geopolitical afterthought.
Your constituents do not need passive representation; they require you to wield your federal leverage to uncompromisingly drag these stalledinfrastructure agendas across the finish line.“Turn Off the Red Light”Tax payers are tired of hearing which department owns which pipe, which drain or which square meter of asphalt.
We demand that the current ADUN N.18 Inanam and MP P.171 Sepanggar jointly establish a permanent, cross jurisdictional ‘Tebobon-Sepanggar Infrastructure Taskforce’ or in a fashion thatdeems fit for governance and public participation, to force DBKK, JKR, JTU and JPS into asingle room.JPS and DBKK must overhaul subsurface utilities before another brick is laid; JKR and JTU must fast track land acquisitions to clear entry bottlenecks.
For over ten years, the authorities have managed this ‘corridor’ through a lazy cycle of reactive crisis management; “turning on the red light” only when the system completely breaks down.
It istime to turn off the red lights, smash the institutional enclaves and give the people of Sepanggarand Inanam the civil dignity and fluidity of “proper yet sincere” infrastructure they have rightfully earned.
