Friday, January 9, 2009

The ELITE Slaughterer

The ELITE (Expressway Lingkaran Tengah) highway was the last of the 22 concessionaire agreements made public at the Works Ministry library on Wednesday afternoon.

I went there yesterday to have a firsthand look at the long awaited agreement.

The compensation scheme by our government to the concession company for not to increase toll rate at year 2002 is a real slaughterer!

First, besides waiving all interest accrued from the original 100 millions loan, the concession company was granted another 300 millions interest free loan for the project. Second, the concession period to collect toll was extended twice from year 2018 to 2025 and again to 2030. Last but not least, the concession company is to collect levy throughout the concession period and to increase it by 10% every 3 year until its expiry on year 2030.

Of course, any feedback from the people on these agreements will be remained hooha and for academic arguments. The government should make public now the existing and upcoming toll concessionaire agreements, for instance the 90% completed DUKE (Duta-Ulu Klang Expressway) project, inviting constructive criticisms from the people so any wrong can be rectified before it’s too late.


Lim Lip Eng

No comments: