Why Pakatan’s proposal on toll restructuring better for rakyat – Khalid Samad
The whole purpose of the exercise, or so I thought, is not how it would relieve the government of this and that duty or responsibility, but how it would reduce the burden on the rakyat.
(The Vibes) – Still a number of unanswered questions on concession deal in the billions
IT seems that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) presidential statement in response to the toll restructuring exercise announced by the prime minister has invited some interesting, but rather desperate responses.
Let me take this opportunity to reply to these responses.
One of the first to respond was the “malu apa”, or “know no shame”, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who although publicly discredited, still walks around with his head held high.
In his response he made the baseless accusation that the PH government’s plan was to collect the tolls “forever”.
He forgets, quite conveniently, that our proposal was to relieve the rakyat of the financial burdens placed on them by his government, not to make money off of the rakyat nor to rob the rakyat through shady schemes and characters like in his infamous 1MDB saga!
It would be justifiable for us to deduce that “to collect tolls forever” would be his proposal if he was still in power!
PH’s proposal was for the government to buy over the four tolls and provide a 30% discount to all users who use it during off-peak times.
Those using it during peak hours, however, would be charged the current undiscounted rate. Where the shameless man got the idea that we would be collecting the tolls forever is beyond me.
Just as feeling shame for robbing the nation of billions is beyond him.
Suffice to say the toll concession period was not mentioned in the proposal as there would be no change. Toll collection, albeit with discounts, would end when the concession ends.
The response from the works minister was equally interesting.
He said that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government had already been working on the plan to restructure the tolls since 2002. And as the PH government was formed in 2018, some 16 years later, we should not claim that the idea was from us. I, frankly, was stunned by this response. How many years does it take for the BN government to finalise a proposal?
