SHAH ALAM, 3 Apr: The Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara, Tony Pua, slammed the statement by the Public Works Minister, Datuk Fadillah Yusof, who said the cost of acquiring the highway concessions in the country will reach RM400 billion.
He said that the amount was impossible because the cost of building 26 highways is less than RM29 billion.
Tony also questioned the move by Barisan Nasional (BN) of placing the amount at 14 times of the actual construction cost, which is RM28.5 billion, when the highway concessions agreement clearly states that the government does not need to make any kind of compensation.
“Is the Government trying to compensate the concessionaires for the loss of future profits, despite the fact that the highway concession agreement clearly states that the government does not need to make any compensation.
“There are 26 tolled- highways operating in Peninsular Malaysia. By scheduling the construction cost for each highway, the figure only comes up to RM28.5 billion.
“While the most expensive highway is the North-South Expressway, valued at RM5.95 billion,” he said in a statement.
Tony said that if the mount is compensation for loss of future profits, this means that the people in this country are paying toll fares for the next two decades and concessionaires will receive a profit of RM370 billion.
“What kind of government do we currently have where the contract signed allows crony concession companies to make a profit?
“This shows that the government does not intend to repurchase the toll concessions to make way for crony companies to profit billions of ringgit,” he said.
He said that all concession agreements, including the North-South Expressway and the Penang Bridge, have reached a clause in the agreement which allows for the Federal Government to repurchase the concessions.
It is based on the construction cost with the assurance that concessionaires will receive a return of 12 percent each year prior to operation.
“This means that assuming that highways did not even make a cent over the past few years of operation, then the repurchase cost will reach a maximum of approximately an estimate of RM0 billion, so the Federal Government’s estimate of RM400 billion is ridiculous.
“However, most of these highways earn great profits of over 12 percent in the past few years, meaning that there is no need for the Government to offset profits that are “not enough” in the years preceding operations.
“Whats more is that there is no need for the government to acquire all the highways. The government only needs to focus on highways that clearly make unreasonable profit, like the LDP, with a net profit margin of over 40 percent, to ease the burden of the people,” he said.
He said that the statement by the Minister proves that BN does not put the interests of the common people first, who have been suffering a high inflation fate for over a decade.
He said, instead, it will do its best to protest the unreasonable profit enjoyed by BN corny companies for the purpose of better knowing themselves.
