Bukit Kukus Highway is so high you can even bungee-jump from it, says Penang exco

GEORGE TOWN, Oct 14 — The Bukit Kukus Highway in Paya Terubong, at a height of 55m from the pile caps, is the highest elevated highway in the country and could potentially become Penang’s next tourist draw, said state exco Jagdeep Singh Deo (DAP ― Datuk Keramat) at the legislative assembly today.

The Local Government, Housing and Town and Country Planning Committee chairman said the massive project cost RM545.6 million.

“It is the highest elevated highway in the country, maybe it can even be a tourist site. We can make the highest bungee jump from the highway,” he said in jest when answering a question on the highway from Opposition leader Datuk Mohamad Yusoff Mohd Noor (BN ― Sungai Dua).

Jagdeep said the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) funded the 3.3km portion of the highway project for RM275.6 million.

He admitted that the project costs were high and that it was one of the highest expenditures in MBPP's budget.

“We agreed that this was a public project that had to be built and implemented as soon as possible so the state funded it,” he said.

He said the money came from state funds when, in fact, the federal government should be the ones bankrolling such a huge public infrastructure project.

Earlier, Jagdeep said the total length of the highway is 5.5km, of which 3.3km was built by MBPP, 1.4km by a private company, PLB Land Sdn Bhd, and 0.8km by another private company, Geo Valley Sdn Bhd.

The construction costs were RM275.6 million for MBPP, RM150 million for PLB Land and RM120 million for Geo Valley, bringing the total cost of the project to RM545.6 million.

He said the MBPP portion of the highway will be completed by the middle of next year, possibly in May.

“The other two portions might not be completed within that time frame but we will ensure there are link roads so that the first portion can still be used,” he said.

When Yusoff asked him about the safety of the elevated highway, noting that the land it sits on appears unstable and porous, Jagdeep said this had already been looked into.

“This was taken into account. In the entire investigation into the landslide incident, among the recommendations by the committee was to make it compulsory for the main contractor to appoint an engineer to monitor and prepare a construction plan and an independent checker to monitor the project for the sake of public safety,” he said.

Jagdeep also said MBPP has been vigilant about monitoring hill slope projects on the island where it has conducted a total of 8,613 checks on all such sites since 2018 as of last night.

“A total of 420 warning notices and 115 stop-work orders were issued,” he said.

He said the local authorities will continue to oversee and monitor these projects.