ROMPIN,
June 20 (Bernama)

The Works Ministry will give priority to upgrading the Kuantan-Segamat road, under the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), due to a high accident rate. Works Minister Datuk Shaziman Mansur said work on upgrading the 147km road, also known as the Tun Razak Highway and built in the 1970s, would be carried out quickly to avoid more deaths. "Accidents are very common on the stretch and since a proposal to upgrade the road was included in the 10MP, we will carry out work soon," he told reporters after opening the Rompin Umno Division delegates meeting here on Sunday.

He added that traffic along the stretch had also increased over the years, causing congestion which attributed to an increase in accidents. On June 17, five in a family perished while three others suffered serious injuries in an accident involving a Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) and a trailer, at KM87 of Jalan Kuantan-Segamat. A week before (June 8), another accident at KM78 of the same road near Pekan, involving a car and a trailer, claimed six lives.

"The ministry had carried out a study on roads that needed to be upgraded due to increase in traffic or accidents and submitted it to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU)," he said. Apart from the Kuantan-Segamat road, the Kuantan-Bahau-Serting road would also be upgraded to ease those travelling from Rompin and Pekan to Bahau, Serting and Kuala Pilah in Negeri Sembilan, without having to use East Coast Expressway, he said.

Shaziman also added that the second phase of the East Coast Expressway, a 190km stretch from the Pahang border to Kampung Gemuruh in Terengganu, to be build at a cost of RM3 billion, would be completed by 2012.