ALOR SETAR: The Higher Education (MOHE) has urged all agencies under its purview to accelerate the implementation of development projects to strengthen the country’s higher education sector.

MOHE secretary-general Datuk Dr Aminuddin Hassim also expressed his hope that the agencies would improve their development expenditure performance to ensure that every approved allocation is utilised optimally.

“As of July 6, MOHE’s development expenditure performance remained below target, recording 40.88%, or RM1.574 billion, compared with the national average of 42.27%.

“According to the Inter-Ministry Expenditure Performance Report issued by the Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU), MOHE is currently ranked 13th out of 28 ministries. Immediate improvement measures are therefore needed to achieve the expenditure target of 55%,” he said in a statement issued by Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) today.

Earlier, while chairing the Ministry Development Action Committee (JTPK) meeting at UUM in Sintok, he said all allocated funds must be spent according to the prescribed schedule.

He added that strong project implementation performance would form the basis for the government’s confidence in continuing to allocate development funding in the future.

“All agencies must expedite the implementation of projects under Rolling Plan 5 (RP5) of the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP), as there are still 24 projects in the pre-implementation stage as of July 17,” Aminuddin said, adding that project documentation should be completed as soon as possible to enable Letters of Acceptance (LOA) to be issued this year, while ensuring that project progress is consistently updated through the MyProject system to accurately reflect on-the-ground conditions.

Meanwhile, he said MOHE will realign this year’s development allocations by reallocating surplus funds that are not expected to be utilised to projects requiring additional funding and capable of spending the allocations within the stipulated timeframe.

“To strengthen project governance, MOHE is also introducing several new measures for the management of ageing facilities projects, including cancelling projects that have received a Letter of Approval for Reallocation (SKTP) but have yet to be advertised or remain at the early procurement stage.

“The management of MOHE’s physical projects under the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP) will be driven by three key construction technology pillars: the Industrialised Building System (IBS), Pre-Approved Plan (PAP), and Building Information Modeling (BIM),” he said, as such an approach would accelerate project implementation, improve construction quality, standardise designs, and reduce costs and delays through the use of digital technology and industrialised building components.

“All MOHE development projects worth RM100 million and above are required to achieve a minimum IBS score of 70%, while the use of PAP for standard academic buildings, residential colleges, and computer laboratories, as well as the implementation of BIM, is now mandatory for government projects,” he said.