2006 JKR Senior Officers’ Conference

Y.B. Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr.) Alfred Jabu taking a closer look at the souvenir that was presented by Datu Hubert Thian Chong Hui, the Director of JKR

The
2006 Sarawak JKR Senior Officers’ Conference (SOC) was held in Kuching
during the 13th –14th of November 2006. The SOC began its origins as a
Divisional Engineers’ (DE) annual conference several decades ago.

Over
the years, numerous developments by JKR led to even more branches and
divisions being created, which culminated into organising the SOC in
order for all the senior officers from these branches and divisions to
meet, exchange ideas and brainstorm on an annual basis.

This
year’s SOC was organised in-house by the Geotechnical and Structural
Engineering Branch. The conference was officiated by Y.B. Datuk
Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr.) Alfred Jabu Anak Numpang, Deputy Chief Minister
(II) of Sarawak, Minister of Infrastructure Development and
Communication and Minister of Rural Development. 90 participants
attended the conference, ranging from senior engineers, architects,
quantity surveyors, accountants and officers whom had been in service
with JKR for more than 15 years as well as senior engineers whom were
originally from JKR and had been seconded to other departments.

In
Y.B. Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr.) Alfred Jabu’s keynote address, he
noted that in recognition of JKR’s role as Sarawak’s leading
implementing agency, it had a heavy responsibility in ensuring the
successful implementation of the 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP) projects in
line with the rising expectations of the people in the government’s
delivery system.

Even with its fair share of constraints and
limitations, Y.B. Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr.) Alfred Jabu was proud
with JKR’s dedication and professionalism in relation towards the
development of the State.

During the opening ceremony for this
conference, Y.B. Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr.) Alfred Jabu also launched
the JKR’s GEOINFOS, which is a newly developed digital borehole data
modelling system. GEOINFOS includes satellite imagery, GPS co-ordinate
labelling and the generation of standardised borehole logs in digital
format.

The objective of this conference was to resolve matters
brought to attention by the DEs, with this year’s subject matters
including road designs, road construction in peat areas, potential use
of fly ash in enhancing the durability of coastal concrete structures
in Sarawak, claims and dispute resolutions under the new JKR form of
contract, JKR Sarawak’s proposed restructuring, level of integrity
regarding JKR officers in the performance of their duties, the curbing
of corruption and challenges faced by JKR during the implementation of
the 9MP projects.

The 2007 conference will be organised by the JKR’S Technical Management Branch.

A soon-to-be completed road in rural Sarawak