NAJIB THE BIG-SPENDER HAS ALREADY PAID OUT RM20 BILLION – HOW TO SCRAP? GUAN ENG DROPS BOMBSHELL – ECRL TO PROCEED BUT MAHATHIR & CO TO RENEGOTIATE PRICE TAG

WITH already RM20 billion paid out, the controversial East Coast Railway Line (ECRL) project is going to ‎escape the government’s guillotine on mega projects.

But the Pakatan Harapan government is committed to re-negotiating the pricing of China’s landmark ‘One Belt One Road’ ‎project in Malaysia.

On the other hand, the government is still undecided on whether to go ahead or defer the KL-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR).

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng gave ‎the latest updates on the Najib administration’s two mammoth ventures that have been heavily criticised for their lopsided terms.

Various estimates have claimed that the China-backed ECRL could be built for less than RM40 billion but that its cost had been inflated to RM60 to RM70 billion.

“In the ECRL, we have already paid RM20 billion. So it doesn’t really make sense to just scrap it because we’ve already paid RM20 billion,” Lim told The Malaysian Insight.

“It’s one of the projects were are looking to renegotiate,” said Lim of the 688km railway line to connect Port Klang on the west coast with Kuantan, Pahang and Pengkalan Kubor, Kelantan on the east coast.

Lim said the ECRL is being renegotiated while the HSR is being reviewed.

“Review means that it may not go on. That it may be deferred. Re-negotiating means we are talking about pricing.”

Lim, however, did not divulge by how much the government was trying to reduce its cost or the terms of the ECRL contract.

“Let us discuss this first. We cannot have these discussions in public. The negotiations have to be done behind closed doors.”

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said that the ECRL contained “strange terms”. For instance, the project’s loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, is kept abroad and paid to state-owned construction company China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) in China.

Mahathir said this led to suspicions that some of the money was used to repay1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) debts and buy certain companies.

The new PH government pledged to review the ECRL and HSR contracts once it got into power but the projects’ expensive terms and clauses have made it hard to exit the deals.

Malaysia would reportedly have to fork out RM22 billion to cancel the ECRL, while the cost for terminating the HSR is RM500 million.

Lim said the attorney-general has been instructed to study the legal aspects of the HSR so that the government can get a complete picture before discussing it with their Singapore counterparts.

“We have seen the numbers. There is the financial aspect, the engineering aspect and the legal aspect. We have studied the first two and we are now asking the AG to look at the third aspect,” Lim told The Malaysian Insight.

Lim, along with Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali and Transport Minister Anthony Loke, is expected to visit Singapore in the near future to discuss the project.

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