PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli said he did not compare Malaysia's MRT project with Singapore's due to how problematic the latter's project was.
"I didn't pick Singapore's MRT because their cost overran twice, and the project was problematic," Rafizi said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.
He also said that his critics would cite the high costs of Singapore land should he make comparisons between the two MRT projects.
Rafizi was responding to a Malaysiakini fact-check about his arguments that the MRT project was overpriced at US$103 million per kilometre.
The Malaysiakini fact-check found that Rafizi chose the two cheapest rail lines - the Seoul Line 9 and Barcelona Sants-La Sagrerato - to compare against the Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) line, even though there is a list of at least 25 examples.
The Singapore Thomson MRT is the most expensive project on the list, at US$600 million per kilometre.
Rafizi defended his decision to compare the SBK line with the Korean and Spanish projects.
The Pandan MP said he chose Seoul 9 as it was the "upper limit of costs", with Seoul being a more expensive city than Kuala Lumpur, and having a more technically challenging MRT to build as it was all underground.
Meanwhile he also drew comparisons to the Sants-La Sagrerato tunnel as this only factored in construction costs.
This he said, was similar to the initial estimate for Malaysia's three MRT lines at RM40 billion, which MRT later clarified as not taking into account the cost of electric trains, related systems and land acquisition.
The MRT 1 line was expected to cost RM21 billion, while the second Sungai Buloh-Serdang Putrajaya line was priced at RM32 billion.
Rafizi believed the total cost of the two lines plus the Circle Line MRR would be above RM100 billion.- Mkini
In fact Penang tunnel too is problematic to compare...
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