KOTA KINABALU: Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) will impose more stringent checks before considering issuing licences to operators of funfairs or amusement parks in future.
This comes after an incident when a man and a woman suffered serious injuries after they were thrown from their seats while on the spinning “Octopus” ride at Likas here on Wednesday (March 6).
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Mayor Datuk Seri Dr Sabin Samitah said DBKK had in fact properly screened the funfair operator prior to approving the licence previously.
“But accidents can happen,” he said, when met at the DBKK International Women’s Day 2024 celebration here on Friday (March 8).
“But they (operator) should be more thorough in servicing their equipment.
“So, in future, we might be looking at when the machines were last serviced and also look at their records, whether they have had any safety issues that led to accidents here or other places,” he added.
Sabin said the operator currently in question had complied with all the requirements in their application for the permit to hold the funfair, which was supposed to run from Feb 2 to March 10.
“Based on the documentation, we did not see any issue, that’s why DBKK issued the permit to them to operate.
“But we have cancelled their permit immediately (following the incident),” he said.
Towards this end, Sabin said he would refrain from making further statements on the actual incident as investigations were still on-going to discover what really took place that night.
Sabah Police Commissioner Comm Datuk Jauteh Dikun had ordered the funfair to stop operating for safety inspections following the incident.
Kota Kinabalu OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Zaidi Abdullah said initial investigations showed that the two victims - a 29-year-old woman and 35-year-old man - were thrown out of their seats when riding the machine.
They were flung 15m away and sustained injuries, he said, adding the woman hurt her head while the man sustained more serious injuries and had to undergo surgery.
