Five of 12 pending River of Life projects scrapped, says minister

• The River of Life programme, which aims to rehabilitate and beautify the Klang and Gombak rivers in the Klang Valley, has three main components namely clean up, beautification and landscaping. It was also aimed at addressing flood mitigation, according to reports.

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 4): The government has cancelled five of 12 outstanding 'River of Life' projects following a review, as they are deemed "less significant" towards achieving the programme’s objectives, said Minister at the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Zaliha Mustafa.

The River of Life programme, which aims to rehabilitate and beautify the Klang and Gombak rivers in the Klang Valley, has three main components namely clean up, beautification and landscaping. It was also aimed at addressing flood mitigation, according to reports.

Another seven projects will continue in order to achieve the early objectives of the River of Life projects, Zaliha said.

“Procurement process is being prepared by related agencies so that the project can proceed smoothly and all project execution risks are fully taken into account,” she said in a parliamentary written reply on Dec 12, in response to a question from Ahmad Tarmizi Sulaiman [PAS-Sik] on the government’s action relating to the project after it was raised in the recent Auditor-General’s Report Federal Agencies' Activities 2024

The Federal Territories department, said Zaliha, is committed to ensure the River of Life project achieves the underlined objectives.

According to the Auditor-General’s report published in July, the project is behind schedule with none of the objectives fully achieved after 13 years and nearly RM4 billion spent.

Aside from the 12 projects in pre-implementation stage — which has now been reduced to seven — the programme also has eight ongoing projects, with progress ranging from 21% to 97.3% at the time of the report.

For two projects, no replacements have been appointed following the termination of previous contractors, the report said.

The programme had spent RM3.92 billion out of the allocated RM4.363 billion at the end of 2023. Additionally, its goal to generate up to RM4 billion from land sales to finance the programme was not met due to lower-than-expected proceeds, the report said.

That same month, Ekovest Bhd (KL:EKOVEST) clarified that it had officially concluded its contractual role as the project delivery partner (PDP) for the River of Life project in January 2015. The company said its role was to mainly provide horizontal coordination with up to 42 agencies, while the respective agencies under multiple ministries spearheaded the project.

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