BY JACK WONG
KUCHING: Construction firm Zecon Bhd will undertake three major housing projects providing a total of more than 5,900 homes in the state capital.
The company’s chairman Datuk Hamzah Drahman said the Sarawak State Planning Authority (SPA) had approved all the three projects, two of which come under the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme, or PR1MA, with combined gross development value (GDV) of RM2.2bil.
The first PRIMA project at Vista Tunku,Petra Jaya will comprise 2,331 apartment units while the second PRIMA project at Kota Petra will have 1,350 units of single- and double-storey terrace houses. The third project, which comes under the Perumahan Penjawat Awam 1 Malaysia (PPAIM), will comprise 2,231 units of terrace- and semi-detached houses, also in Kota Petra, for civil servants.
“The building plan for the Vista Tunku PRIMA project is awaiting the approval of the City Hall.
“The project is expected to take off the ground in first quarter-2017 and to be fully completed in four years,” Hamzah told StarBiz after the company’s AGM recently.
Besides the landed properties, the project has a proposed six-storey commercial complex.
Hamzah said the company applied for a developer licence for the second PRIMA project and the project was scheduled to commence in the first half of next year.
Under a proposal, Zecon will be given RM138mil by the Government as facilitation fund to implement the PPAIM project, which will take four years to complete upon approval of the building plans.
He said the three projects put the company in a strong position to support both the federal and state governments’ efforts to provide quality affordable housing for the people.
[slider id='81590' name='StarProperty' size='full']
Hamzah said the company has added to its land bank to some 1,200ha with the acquisition of three pieces of state land this year in Salak district behind the Demak Laut Industrial Park here.
He said the land covering a total of 517.7ha was acquired for some RM200mil as “investment properties”. The acquisition was financed mainly by bank borrowings. According to Zecon’s latest annual report, the three pieces of land have a combined net book value of RM358mil. The PPAIM and second PRIMA project would be located on parts of these parcels.
Hamzah said the 300-bed Petra Jaya Hospital project will be completed by year-end. The hospital was originally scheduled for completion in June.
He said Zecon had terminated the previous sub-contractor for the hospital on mutual agreement about three months ago,adding that the company had taken over the project and a recovery plan had been put in place to speed up physical construction that currently stood at over 40%.
Zecon’s other hospital project, the 243-bed Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) children’s special hospital in Cheras under private finance initiative concession, has seen the phase one completed with the second phase more than 10% completed. The entire hospital will be ready by late 2018.
On another matter, he said works was currently in progress for the RM1.46bil work package under the Pan Borneo Highway project, which Zecon was awarded via a joint venture with Kimlun Sdn Bhd.
Scheduled for completion in 2020, the package involves a 75km long road from Serian roundabout to Pantu junction in southern Sarawak.
Hamzah noted that the company’s order book stood at RM2.5bil excluding the housing projects.
The company swung back to the black with pre-tax profit of RM2.3mi in the first quarter ended Sept 30, from a pre-tax loss of RM2.2mil in the preceding year corresponding quarter. Revenue rose to RM39.3mil from RM31.2mil during the same period.
