Toll will not be abolished until Malaysia’s financial situation improves

(MMO) – Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) promise to abolish road tolls will only be looked at once Malaysia’s financial situation improves, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

“Some of these promises, as much as we want to do it now, we will implement them when the financial situation improves,” he told Malay Mail in an interview at his office in Putrajaya yesterday.

His comments come on the back of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad acknowledging last night that more than 100 days are needed to fulfil PH’s 10 pledges in its election manifesto.

Dr Mahathir said PH made the promise when they were not privy to the state of the administration’s finances, which has since been revealed to include at least RM1 trillion in debt and liabilities.

Lim told Malay Mail the government has no choice now but to wait for its financial situation to improve, but did not rule out putting an end to tolls within the first 100 days of the PH administration.

“We are compelled. We don’t have a choice. We have to be fiscally responsible. We want to keep to within the budget deficit of 2.8 per cent of GDP.”

However, he stressed that the PH government will definitely do away with tolls.

“We will implement it. We will not give up,” he said.

The opposition Umno recently accused PH of failing to fulfil its pledge to fully abolish tolls.

Aside from highlighting the debt mountain left by the defeated Barisan Nasional government, however, Dr Mahathir also said he was confident the public would understand how difficult it is for PH to take over a “damaged” government.