Are tolls abolished because concessions are to expire, asks PKR

KUALA LUMPUR: PKR’s Wong Chen questions if the announcement yesterday that four tolls were to be abolished from next year was because the agreement with the concessionaires had expired.

The Kelana Jaya MP said while it was a good move to abolish the Batu Tiga and Sungai Rasau tolls in Shah Alam, he questioned if it was a genuine move on the part of the government.

“I ask this because it could simply be a matter of the toll agreements having expired?

“But we won’t know if it has expired as all the toll agreements are classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA),” Wong said.

Wong asked the government to show the agreement between them and the toll concessionaires for the toll collection which was implemented 24 years ago.

The Batu Tiga and Sungai Rasau toll collection started in May 1993, after PLUS upgraded the entire federal highway, all the way to Klang, into a six-lane highway.

Meanwhile, Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani said Putrajaya was planning to restructure some of the existing toll concessions following the move to abolish four tolls in the country.

This follows the announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak in his Budget 2018 speech yesterday that toll collection at four locations – Batu Tiga and Sungai Rasau in Shah Alam, Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah and the Eastern Dispersal Link (EDL) in Johor – will be abolished.

PLUS Malaysia Bhd, which holds the concession for Batu Tiga and Sungai Rasau in Shah Alam, and Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah, had last year expressed interest to buy Malaysian Resources Corporation Bhd’s (MRCB) stake in the concession holder of the EDL.

“There is no cash compensation involved but we are trying to extend the tenure of the existing toll agreement,” Johari said. -FMT