Lee (front third left) hands over the Unifor allocation to Philip.

MIRI: The Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) has presented RM100,000 to St Anthony of Padua in Tudan for the construction of its new church building.

Transport Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin presented the grant on behalf of Unifor to parish priest Father Philip Empalah at the church recently.

Lee said he had previously handed over RM600,000 for the project to accommodate the increasing number of parishioners.

However, he said church chairman Hendrick Rosli had informed him that the amount was insufficient.

“So today I am presenting an additional RM100,000 from the state government through Unifor.

“I was also informed that the church is still short of about RM400,000 and we will look into this matter through discussion with the Bishop, as we are also building a new church in Permyjaya, thus we need to have a lot of provisions,” he said.

Lee said the government would look at how to further assist in completing the new church building.

The project costing over RM1.5 million began last year and is expected to be completed by the middle of the year.

The new building is being constructed using an Industrialised Building System design.

It will replace the existing church, which was built in 1996.