Who was responsible for lopsided toll concessions - Dr M or MO1?
YOURSAY | It was Mahathir who awarded the highly unfair toll agreements to PLUS.
Idiocracy: When Umno split between Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, the party’s gravy train was divided too.
So when Umno Baru recovered, with half their income channels gone the other way, one of the first things that Mahathir did in the early 90s was to give cheap loans through government-owned banks to an Umno company to start the toll monopoly to collect money almost perpetually until today.
And also, after the distrust with Umno ‘lama’ gang, Mahathir went to non-Malay tycoons and gave them IPP (independent power producer) contracts.
Both are heavy ‘taxes’ on the rakyat that made GST looked like chicken feed. More than one generation later, we are still paying tolls for the same highway built during Mahathir’s time.
The political beauty is Mahathir knows how to manipulate the Malaysian masses. No leader in history can ever achieve the feat of being a saviour of a nation at 93. All thanks to former PM Najib Razak and his associate Jho Low.
Kahlil Gibran: The development cost of the highways was grossly inflated and because of that, the government has to bleed the rakyat to pay high tolls for decades. This is not fair.
The highway's actual cost may be RM200 million but the cost to construction was RM1 billion. So now we are being penalised to pay the toll to subsidies corruption.
We all know that the toll concessionaires are Mahathir's cronies so that is why tolls cannot be abolished. So it looks like Harapan took us for a ride.
Many of the Malaysiakini commenters are talking rubbish. Let us agree that the toll agreements are lopsided and we know who is at fault. However, they do not want to talk about the toll agreements and instead just want to blame Najib for everything.
The economy is not as bad as Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is making it out because they know they oversold in the manifesto. Harapan cheated the voters with such a manifesto.
If the government abolishes tolls, then they have to compensate the toll companies with huge sums of money.
Prudent: If Mahathir abolishes tolls and compensate the toll concessionaires, he would only be dishing out development expenditure that should have been used in the first place for building those expressways.
But most of the concessionaires, especially PLUS, was financed by the government and likely still owe the government. If so, the government will get back some of the money to 'compensate' the concessionaires.
If not, as I stated above, then the government is only putting out expenditure for development that it should have spent instead of financing the concessionaires. And the compensation can take place over a few years, with the interest offset by the interest due to the government for the outstanding loans.
And if the expressways are taken over at cost less depreciation (likely), there should be even less for the government to compensate. So for the government to abolish tolls and pay off the concessionaires is very doable financially speaking.
The suspicion is that the former Umno kleptocrats who are feeding off the ‘dedak’ from tolls have found their way into Harapan and is now influencing policies on tolls.
And increasing the price of petrol? Don't even dream of it. The campaign promise is that petrol price would be reduced to RM1.80 per litre. That the price remains at RM2.20 per litre is already breaking a promise vital to the wellbeing of the rakyat.
I repeat, Harapan should save by cutting out the fat in its budget and increase expenditure on development to grow the economy at a time when the world is cast into the shadow of fear of the US-China trade war.
Don't burden the rakyat with new "pain and sacrifice" taxes and further tax them by increasing the price of petrol - which will lead to another round of inflation and further diminish the money in the hands of the rakyat.
MO1 (Malaysian Official 1), you are saying the right thing this time. Keep it up. And maybe Malaysia will forgive you.
A price increase in petrol or refusal to abolish tolls will eventually take more money out of the hands of the rakyat than 1MDB ever could.
And if Harapan bungles the economy and sends Malaysia into a recession, it will destroy more wealth than your whole nine years of alleged kleptocratic rule.
Roger 5201: Mahathir's retreat merely confirmed how bad our economy really is, no thanks to Umno's spin doctors who painted a rosy facade around an economy already in a serious tailspin.
It is also clear in hindsight why Najib had to embark on and commit our nation to these expensive and bloated projects to cover up for Umno's excesses.
MO1, please pay back to the people what you have taken that is not yours and have not used.
Dont Just Talk: Look at how Najib behave despite 32 corruption and abused of power charges that he is facing in court. He still shouts and talks like he is PM but when he was challenged to a public debate by Harapan leaders during the 14th GE, he dared not take it up.
The Malaysian voters are still solidly behind Mahathir even if tolls are not abolished rather than supporting the corrupted Umno under Najib aka MO1.
Love Malaysia: You are to be blamed, Najib. You did nothing to abolish or renegotiate on the toll charges during your tenure but instead increase the charges and build more tolled roads.
All those tolls “abolished” were those whose concession period have expired but you told the rakyat that you abolished them. Now you want to blame Mahathir. Sorry Najib, the majority of the people don't buy that.
ChuenTick: Yes, Najib, this broadside by you is spot on. It was Mahathir that awarded the highly unfair toll agreements to PLUS.
Where is DAP leader Tony Pua or whoever it was who told the rakyat that PLUS has more than recouped its investments from the toll collected so far?
Abasir: The rakyat were conned by Mahathir and Harapan on this toll promise just as everyone was conned by Najib and his gang of high-living thieves.
In both New and Old Malaysia, the gullible rakyat exist to be conned. -Mkini
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