KUALA BESUT, July 15 — A RM400 million education initiative by former Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh to transform rural Besut is at a risk of becoming a “white elephant”, as grass grows over the 280-hectare Taman Ilmu (Knowledge Park) here.

Originally planned to be completed by 2008, construction has been slow and in some parts has ground to a standstill after Idris’ successor and political rival Datuk Seri Ahmad Said took over administration of Terengganu.

The Malay Mail Online recently visited the 280-hectare site in the seaside village of Tembila, roughly 15km from Besut district’s administrative capital Kampung Raja and found the place to be in various stages of neglect.

Out of the seven originally planned complexes, only two looked completed — with a mosque occupying the land in Parcel A and a library in Parcel B.

Silence hung heavy over the site, punctured only by birdcalls overhead.

Work on the park started in the middle of 2007, about three years after Idris succeeded in wresting back Terengganu from a short-lived PAS rule, and a year shy of the election that would see state Ruler, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, replace him with Ahmad.

The Knowledge Park was meant to be an education hub where six institutions of higher learning led by the flagship Universiti Darul Iman (UDM), as it was known then, would share facilities in areas divided according to “parcels”, following the naming convention previously adopted by Barisan Nasional (BN) in the federal administrative capital of Putrajaya.

Since then, UDM has been renamed Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) and Putrajaya has dropped the use of the name “parcel”.

Situated in a concentric circle, Parcel B stuck up like a sore thumb among all the other neglected parcels. Weeds had sprung up from the cracks on the pavements, fertilised by dung dropped by the cows that roamed the area.

Parcel E, which was meant to be a convocation hall, looked the worst hit by the halt in construction. One completed side of the building hid the fact that the other side was left unpainted, with two-storey-high buttresses teetering dangerously in the breeze, waiting for gravity to call it to the ground.

It is understood that work was last carried out on the site in mid-2008 but construction material was still piled onsite, seemingly awaiting the return of workers to resume building.

Parcel D, originally planned to be a student centre, is still surrounded by scaffolding. Gaping holes mar the walls where the doors were meant to cover. Here too were expensive-looking equipment, abandoned as they were placed alongside other unused construction material.

It is not clear whether the developers plan to return and continue the construction, as the administrative office was left unlocked.

Close-up view of an uncompleted building in Knowledge Park in Kuala Besut. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

Paperwork was strewn on the tables as if the occupants left in a hurry some two months ago.

Hardhats hang on one wall with labels in the Korean “hangul” script above them, reflecting the nationality of the firm involved in the joint venture.

Empty packs of kretek”, a cigarette blend of tobacco, cloves and other flavours, lie crumpled and empty on the ground.

The only people in the Knowledge Park during The Malay Mail Online’s visit were a group of primary schoolers spotted playing in one of the ponds constructed in front of Parcel B to beat the heat in the fasting month.

“Right now, there is no work being done here,” said one of the youths leisurely riding a motorbike around the park, in heavily-accented east coast Malay.

“The only work done is on the other side,” he pointed out, towards an area adjacent to Parcel A.

The site, which will be UniSZA’s Besut campus, bustled with activity, in stark contrast to the Knowledge Park.

In October 2009, Ahmad was reported as saying that UniSZA had been the only institution which has applied for residency in the education hub.

The mentri besar conceded that work had been slow since the project was no longer done through direct consultation with Putrajaya like in his predecessor’s days, funded by the royalty money from oil off the state’s coast.

He was reported again in November 2012 as saying that the project will be ready for local and international students by this year.

Another view of uncompleted buildings in Knowledge Park in Kuala Besut. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

Post-Election 2013, Idris is reportedly banking on his new post as the second education minister to transfer decisions regarding the knowledge centre from the state government to Putrajaya, which would effectively grant him full control of his pet project.

“Dr A. Rahman and I will bring the matter to the attention of the mentri besar, so that Knowledge Park will be transferred to the Ministry of Education,” Hulu Besut state assemblyman Nawi Mohamed reportedly said in May, while welcoming Idris in his new ministerial appointment.

Nawi was referring to Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar, the late Kuala Besut assemblyman, whose death in June triggered a by-election due on July 24.

With Islamist PAS campaigning on the glaring economic disparity that continues to choke Kuala Besut, the issue of a multi-million ringgit white elephant is bound to weigh heavily against both Idris and Ahmad.

Ahmad had this week reprimanded Terengganu residents for being “stingy” with their support for BN, blaming them for leaving his administration at risk of what could be Malaysia’s first-ever hung assembly.

He pointed to Terengganu residents’ alleged ingratitude towards the “generosity” of the BN state government, which he said has lavished them with financial aid and subsidies.

The prominence of one-time rivals Idris and Ahmad in the by-election has led to talk of rival factions within the state Umno and heightened fears of internal sabotage, forcing BN to mobilise its big guns for a relatively minor by-election.

Kuala Besut is considered an Umno stronghold, as it has won there by over 2,000 votes in the previous two elections. But the party and the larger BN coalition are sparing no effort to ensure that it does not fall into Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) hands.

BN’s Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman will face local boy from PAS, Azlan Yusof, for the Terengganu state seat in the July 24 by-election which was called following the death of Dr A. Rahman on June 26 from lung cancer.

In Election 2013, Dr Rahman had defeated PAS’s Napisah Ismail with a comfortable 2,434-vote majority. The state seat has 17,679 registered voters, of whom 98 per cent are Malays.

Although not yet completed, some parts of the building in Knowledge Park are already falling to pieces. — Photo by Saw Siow Feng