KUALA LUMPUR: The government has come up with a proposal to build four new tolled highways for the peninsula, but it appears that the project will not be up for open tender.
DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua today criticised the proposal because he claimed it was not made in a transparent manner.
A business newspaper The Edge Financial Daily yesterday reported that four new tolled highways have been proposed for the peninsula and are likely to be announced when Budget 2011 is unveiled on Friday.
According to the report, it is understood that PLUS Expressways Bhd would be the concession operator of two highways, while Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) would run the other two.
The highways to be operated by PLUS are from Sungai Dua to Juru in Penang, and from Kinrara to Damansara in the Klang Valley. The PNB-operated highways are said to be from Ampang to Cheras and from Damansara to Sungai Buloh.
Pua said the news came as a surprise because there “appears to be no indication at all” that the project is being tendered on an open and competitive basis as promised under the Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s New Economic Model (NEM).
“One doesn’t have to look into the NEM to see that the prime minister knows well the negative impact of a poorly managed, directly awarded privatisation exercise,” he said.
'Yet to walk the talk'
Pua pointed out that at the Jeddah Economic Forum in 2007, Najib, then deputy prime minister, told foreign investors that Malaysia had learnt some lessons from the privatisation exercises of the 1980s.
“Najib had admitted that even when there is a national agenda of preferential treatment in favour of disadvantaged economic groups, there must be enough competition within this group to ensure that only those with the necessary skills, capabilities and resources are selected.
“Najib had also specifically advised against a ‘first come, first serve’ approach. He had admitted that our experience has shown that by providing exclusivity to one party, costs had escalated and this had burdened consumers and taxpayers,” said Pua.
Despite this admission, Pua said the prime minister has yet “to walk the talk”.
“It was an open admission that our Malaysian privatisation policy since the 1980s is a failure in many aspects.
“The question is, while Najib has eloquently criticised our privatisation policies to a group of international investors, has he or will he be practising what he preaches under NEM?” he asked.
Pua also accused the government of “not making its best effort” to help people reduce the cost of living by ensuring the toll tariffs are kept to the minimum and imposed only when absolutely necessary”.
Therefore, said Pua, the prime minister must explain during his Budget 2011 speech if “open tender is going to be a cornerstone of his administration”.
“This is not only for the purchases of ‘pen and paper’, but more importantly for all the mega projects being awarded under the guise of public finance initiatives or public-private partnerships,” he said.
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