KUALA LUMPUR: Former Council of Eminent Persons member Jomo Kwame Sundaram insists it is still possible to review the controversial East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) without “embarrassing China”.
The prominent economist said there were many competent individuals in the country with the relevant experience to negotiate around this, “and do so without embarrassing China at all”.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday said there were “a lot of national considerations at stake” in deciding whether or not to scrap the 648km railway project.
Lim, who shared Jomo’s view about cancelling the project, said ECRL involved relations with China, its biggest trading partner.
Speaking to reporters at an event here, Jomo said he did not think that the Chinese leadership would want to be associated with the project.
“We just need to identify where the nonsense took place and thankfully, a lot of this is coming out in the courts. And then we handle it appropriately.
“We are very lucky that what has come out from the court allows us to go back to China and say to them that ‘we did not know this before, now we do’.”
Earlier, this month a witness at the ongoing 1MDB trial said ECRL, which will connect Kelantan to the Klang Valley, was mooted by former prime minister Najib Razak to bail out 1MDB.
On April 12, Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd and China Communications Construction Company Ltd signed a supplementary agreement on April 12 to reduce the cost of the ECRL.
Under the new agreement, construction of phases 1 and 2 of ECRL will be resumed at a cost of RM44 billion, a reduction of RM21.5 billion from the original projection of RM65.5 billion.
The rail line will have a new alignment, which cuts its distance by 40km to 648km and reduces the cost per kilometre from RM98 million to RM68 million. - FMT
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