Prasarana’s CEO needs to answer for LRT3's massive price tag

As a public transport user, I am very concerned about the revelations by the Pakatan Harapan government regarding the Light Rail Transit 3 (LRT3) project that’s currently ongoing.

According to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, the cost which was announced as RM9 billion had ballooned to around RM31.45 billion.

There is currently a blame game going on among the parties involved – namely Prasarana Nasional Bhd against its own appointed project delivery partner (PDP), MRCB-George Kent Sdn Bhd.

The background, as I understand it, is that the current Prasarana CEO Masnizam Hisham was not responsible for the ballooning cost of the project to about RM15 billion, as this happened during the tenure of the former CEO Azmi Abdul Aziz in November 2017 and the Prasarana board of directors had not been informed.

This is suspicious – how can the project owner not be informed of what its contractor is doing, especially when it involves some RM6 billion of additional costs?

I do hope the PDP comes out to clarify this since it is opening up to the MACC.

This raises another question. The Ministry of Finance says the request for RM31.45 billion from Prasarana happened in March 2018, clearly when Masnizam was already CEO.

So, there is a need for Masnizam to come out publicly and clear the air.

This is because before her promotion (to president and CEO in January 2018), she had actually been handling the procurement department for four years since 2008, according to the Prasarana website. Was this period the time when the LRT 3 project budget was being discussed? Was this also the time when the PDP was appointed?

Another question needs to be raised – where does the buck stop?

It is surprising to me that while corporate Malaysia is going through a barn-cleaning exercise throughout the government-linked companies, Prasarana’s board of directors insists on keeping a CEO who was allegedly running two rail projects in Saudi Arabia at over a RM100 million loss and allowed the LRT3 project cost to balloon to RM31.45 billion.

These decisions show that Prasarana and its board must bear collective responsibility for its decisions. I am actually surprised that they have not resigned en masse similar to what happened in Khazanah Nasional Bhd.

Perhaps that is something that needs to be done here, in the case of the public transport management company. There is a need to put back credibility and confidence in the management of our public transport network, to remove those who were responsible for wasteful decisions and ballooning costs, on top of truly fiscal and even horrible design.

And in all these, the buck stops with the CEO, and the board of directors of Prasarana. - Mkini