Saturday, February 28, 2009
Govt Urged To Renegotiate Contracts With Highway Operators
February 28, 2009 19:31 PM
Govt Urged To Renegotiate Contracts With Highway Operators
By Voon Miaw Ping
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 (Bernama) -- Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) today urged the government to renegotiate highway concession contracts will all operators.
The concessionaires, meanwhile, should justify their toll collection structure and make public their annual revenue from toll collections, said TI-M president Tan Sri R.V. Navaratnam.
"There is still a nagging question that goes unanswered for so long -- why are they overcharging the people?
"The public wants more transparency and accountability on the profit made by the concessionaires," he said to Bernama.
Works Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Zin Mohamed announced on Thursday that toll rates for five expressways -- North-South Expressway, Western Kuala Lumpur Traffic Dispersal System Expressway, Ampang-Kuala Lumpur Elevated Highway, Sungai Besi Highway and New Pantai Expressway -- would increase between 0.68 sen and 50 sen from March 1.
The next day, however after a public outcry, the Cabinet decided to postpone the hike indefinitely and as a result, the government now would have to fork out at least RM287 million this year to compensate the concession holders.
While welcoming the Cabinet's latest decision, Navaratnam said the government should have been more transparent and accountable as the compensation "involves a wastage of huge amount of public funds".
"The people wants to know why the government need to compensate so much to these concessionaires," he said.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (Fomca) called on the government to rectify any unfairness in the concession agreements which it said was tantamount to "daylight robbery".
Fomca secretary-general Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said the agreements only benefited certain stakeholders and the government should seriously consider buying out the concessionaires now for all the people to benefit in the long run.
"The government can buy out these concessionaires as the government owns a majority of the shares. Why it needs to bow to their demands while the welfare of the largest stakeholder -- the people -- is at stake," he said.
-- BERNAMA
