Works minister Fadillah Yusof announced on Friday the government has postponed the increase in toll rates for 2021 for the Kesas Highway, the South Klang Valley Expressway and the Lebuhraya Pantai Timur 2 (LPT2) until next year in view of the economic situation faced by the public.
Delays to toll increases for the North-South Highway, the Duta-Ulu Kelang Expressway (DUKE), the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP) and the KL-Putrajaya Highway (MEX), announced earlier, have also been extended.
DAP’s Damansara MP Tony Pua said the proposal by the previous PH government to buy over highways owned by Gamuda Bhd, which would have included the Kesas, LDP, Sprint Expressway and SMART Tunnel, would have allowed the government to save “a few hundred million ringgit in 2021 alone”.
He said the savings would have been of “crucial importance” given Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s recent comments that the government was running out of funds.
“In our proposal, the government would have acquired these highways for RM6.2 billion but the government would not have to pay a single sen for it because it would have been funded via the existing toll collection,” the DAP national publicity secretary said in a statement this morning.
As a result, the government would no longer have to pay the concessionaires any future compensation for freezing the toll increases.
“Over the entire term of the highway concession period, the government would have saved more than RM5.3 billion. These funds could have been spent for the welfare of the rakyat or on new infrastructure projects, instead of being paid to the highway concessionaires.”
Pua said under the arrangement mooted by PH in the 2020 annual budget, toll rates for the acquired highways would have been reduced by 30% and future hikes would have been eliminated, saving road users RM180 million in the first year.
“Instead, because the PN (Perikatan Nasional) government ditched the plan, these concessionaires still own the highways and will continue to increase toll rates every two to three years,” he said.
He urged the government to revive the plan to save the country money and benefit highway users.
“Finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, a former investment banker, must educate his cabinet colleague Datuk Seri Fadillah as well as the prime minister on policies that ‘make financial sense’,” he said.
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