Activist: Set up public transport PSC first before cutting costs

The government should have first set up a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on public transport before undertaking the scaling back of various public transport projects, advocacy group Transit Malaysia’s advisor Moaz Yusuf Ahmad said.

Moaz said this would ensure that there is proper oversight over the government’s public transport plans and policies.

“For more than 10 years we have called for a PSC on public transportation, so that our public transport policies and plans will have proper oversight from the parliamentarians.

“The government should have focused on creating this PSC before it announced plans for cost savings, shelving projects, et cetera.

“The government should be committed to transparency, opening all books related to public transport projects for assessment by the PSC as well as independent third-party assessment.

“We cannot continue to build public transport (infrastructure) without comprehensive local planning, including local/regional public transport organising authorities, to plan, manage and organise public transport services,” Moaz told Malaysiakini when contacted last Saturday.

The full name of the advocacy group Transit Malaysia is Association for the Improve­ment of Mass Transit.

The Pakatan Harapan-led government had taken several cost-cutting measures affecting various public transport projects since taking power on May 10, including shelving several projects.

Among others, it has scrapped the MRT3 project. The Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project is also is in limbo as the prime minister is being coy on whether the project is being cancelled or postponed.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the government has received offers to build the HSR at half the original cost and that the government is willing to consider the offer.

Meanwhile, Malaysia and Singapore government-linked companies missed the deadline to sign a joint-venture agreement to build the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS), which was supposed to take place on June 30.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke said on June 1 that the signing would be postponed by about a month to allow time for a review of the project. However, he stressed that the project would continue.

Singapore Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan reportedly said on July 9 that Singapore had not heard “anything officially” from Malaysia on RTS since the Harapan government took power.

“That (signing) did not happen as Prasarana had suspended discussions with SMRT after Malaysia's general election.

“This means that both countries should now proceed to call an open, international tender to appoint the RTS Link operator, unless we mutually agree on a postponement of the deadline,” Singapore’s Straits Times quoted Khaw as saying.

The latest project to face cost-cutting measures is the LRT3 project, for which Lim said the final cost has successfully been slashed to RM16.63 billion, a 47 percent reduction from the initial project cost of RM31.65 billion.

However, this entailed reducing the number of trains and cars for each train, and the size and number of stations along the 37-kilometre route. -Mkini