KOTA KINABALU: Contractor of the Coral Bay luxury condominium in the state capital,
China-based NTSJ Construction (M) Sdn Bhd, has clarified that the company did not intend to delay salary payments for the month of November to their Chinese construction workers.
Its person-in-charge, Ma Jianguo said the late payments were caused by delay in the system responsible for disbursing the wages in renminbi to the workers.
He said the issue has been resolved after expedited handling.
Ma said NTSJ Construction has commenced construction of Coral Bay since November 2018 and was supposed to complete the project by December 2021.
However, he said the Covid-19 pandemic has seriously delayed the construction and thus the completion date was extended to 2023.
For the Coral Bay project, Ma said the company has employed 263 construction workers, including 102 Indonesians and 152 China-nationals.
“We had continued to work during the pandemic under strict compliance of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the Malaysian government in order to keep up with the schedule,” he said, adding that the project has currently reached 60 per cent completion.
He added that the developer of Coral Bay always paid the company on time.
“We have strived to overcome various obstacles during the pandemic period to avoid serious delay to the project and to ensure we are able to deliver the project to the developer as soon as possible.
“We hope the buyers can move into their dream home as early as possible.
“Thanks to the support and assistance from our headquarters in China, we were able to work on the construction site as normal.”
Ma explained that the company did not delay salary payments to the Chinese workers.
He said the incident on Tuesday, referring to a group of Chinese workers who gathered at the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Kota Kinabalu to seek help in resolving their delayed wage payments, was due to delay in the system responsible for disbursing the salaries.
Ma said he understood that the workers needed to send money back to their families for Chinese New Year.
He also thanked the Chinese consulate for facilitating the matter and the local police for their assistance.-pr/BNN
