save malaysia!
KL-Singapore high speed rail to be dropped, says Dr M
savemalaysia
Publish date: Mon, 28 May 2018, 06:24 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — Malaysia is dropping a plan for a high-speed rail link between its capital, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, and will talk with its southern neighbour about the agreement to build it, Malaysia’s prime minister said in an interview published today.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the 92-year-old who triumphed over scandal-plagued Datuk Seri Najib Razak in a general election this month, has made it a priority to cut the national debt and pledged to review major projects agreed by the previous government.
“We need to do away with some of the unnecessary projects, for example the high-speed rail, which is going to cost us RM110 billion (US$28 billion) and will not earn us a single cent. That will be dropped,” Mahathir Mohamad told the Financial Times.
The project, valued by analysts at about US$17 billion, is out for tender and is scheduled to be completed by 2026.
Singapore’s government did not immediately have any comment on Mahathir’s reported vow to scrap the project.
Mahathir had previously said there were high financial penalties for pulling out of the project and Malaysia would try to find out how it could reduce those costs.
“We have an agreement with Singapore,” Mahathir said. We have to talk with Singapore about dropping that project.”
Mahathir has also said his government was haggling with Chinese partners over the terms of a US$14 billion rail deal aimed at connecting the South China Sea at the Thai border in the east with the strategic shipping routes of the Straits of Malacca in the west.
He estimates that Malaysia could cut almost a fifth of its $250 billion national debt and liabilities by scrapping such big projects. — Reuters
https://www.malaymail.com/s/1635764/malaysia-singapore-high-speed-rail-project-hits-the-buffers-reports-ft
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Discussions
Be the first to like this. Showing 19 of 19 comments
PAPpy, don't be sad. Malaysia helping you for an answer for the GST hike from 7% to 9%. Now you don't have the reason for 9%. At least you still can win the next GE.
2018-05-28 19:03
Tun do the right thing.
The money can divert to solve the water issue in selangor and also pipe replacement.
2018-05-28 20:05
Tun want to focus back investment in selangor rather than move to johor with the hsr.
right thing to do.
selangor state is in bad shape with poor road condition.
kps will benefit on this.
2018-05-28 20:09
Tan End will tell you to buy TA lah! for mrcb , uems etc just average down loh! one day sure will go up one mah!
2018-05-28 22:58
good2 this one we should agree, just beware of stocks rleated to it, hopefully temporary falling....
2018-05-28 23:05
By Dennis Ignatius
With a new government in power, the truth about the Najib administration’s reckless spending and gross mismanagement of the nation’s finances is finally coming out – one trillion, maybe more, in debt, huge losses in one government project after another, appalling mismanagement and lack of oversight. I fear we haven’t heard the half of it.
Worse still are the megaprojects with foreign partners that can only be described as a rank betrayal of the nation’s interest.
In time, we might well come to discover that what all these projects had in common was massive corruption, that many of these initiatives were nothing more than a gigantic national feedlot scheme for corrupt politicians and their cronies to feed on public funds to their heart’s content.
If all that money had been put to productive use, we might be a fully developed country by now.
Criminal negligence
One thing is clear: if Najib had not been removed from power, he would have driven the nation to the ground. As it is, it’s going to take us a long time to dig ourselves out of the hole that he put us in. And the citizens of Malaysia are going to have to pay for it.
Of course, Najib is not the only one to blame; every last one of his cabinet ministers contributed to this disaster as did senior officials like the Chief Secretary, the Secretary-General of the Finance Ministry, the Governor of Bank Negara and the Attorney-General, among others. If they had any honour, they would have resigned by now.
Dr Mahathir and his economic team now have their work cut out for them. If anyone can turn the situation around it is Mahathir. At least we can be thankful for that.
Megaprojects galore
One of the more pressing challenges that the country now faces is the megaprojects with China and Singapore.
The RM55 billion East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) is perhaps emblematic of the way Najib worked with China. Not only did we borrow money from China to pay China to build a railway link that was both unnecessary and unviable, the terms of the contract itself were “very damaging to our economy,” as Mahathir noted after being briefed on the matter. Even the way the loan agreement was negotiated was “not normal” according to him. The final price tag for this colossal white elephant might even exceed RM92 billion we are told.
In effect, China took for itself all the benefits and left us with all the liabilities. Was this the Belt and Road Initiative or a plan to bankrupt and railroad us?
A disaster of this magnitude, of course, does not occur because of incompetence or even stupidity; such adverse and one-sided terms indicate that other factors were at play.
Mahathir has now expressed the hope that the project could be renegotiated if not cancelled entirely. The PRC ambassador to Malaysia, on the other hand, keeps insisting that “there are no changes in the ECRL project” and that everything is “running smoothly.”
The RM 110 billion Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) project represents another huge headache for Malaysia. Despite all the hype its just not cost-beneficial. However, as Mahathir noted, “The terms and agreement for the HSR are such that if we decide to drop the project, it would cost us a lot of money.”
Thus far, Singapore, like China, has not indicated a willingness to rethink the project. Thanks to Najib, Singapore too has us by the cojones. No wonder Singapore, like China, was rooting for Najib in the last election, preferring a weak and easily manipulatable candidate in Putrajaya to Mahathir.
Moral responsibility
In the end, we might have little choice but to abide by the terms of the contracts. However, an argument can also be made that both China and Singapore took advantage of a corrupt regime to sign projects that did not meet international standards of good governance and transparency. China, in particular, must have known that the ECRL project was suspect right from the beginning; yet, it went ahead with it. Indeed, China exploited our weaknesses to impose “unequal treaties” (as Mahathir called them) upon us.
I submit, therefore, that they have a moral responsibility to do the right thing now and cancel if not renegotiate these agreements with minimum penalty.
Hard lessons in independence
Whatever it is, we will now discover who our friends really are.
Both China and Singapore can insist on their pound of flesh and use their economic muscle to bully us into maintaining these “unequal treaties” or they can do the right thing and work with our government to find mutually acceptable solutions. They can have their pound of flesh or they can prove themselves the good neighbours they claim to be, but they can’t have both.
For Malaysia, it is a lesson, a very expensive lesson, that when we have weak and corrupt leaders, we are vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation. We must never allow ourselves to be put in this position ever again.
Dennis Ignatius is a former ambassador.
2018-05-29 09:13
The ECRL new routing proposed by Chin Tong to stop at Gemas, the comparison must be made against the travel time also.
How long does sea freight will take to travel from Soucth China Sea to Singapore to Port Klang vs Kuantan to Gemas to Port Klang ?.
Of course it is understandable that the immediate idea is to check if there could be any exercise of cost cutting can be made by avoiding the hilly area but never forget the initial intend.
If the travel time saving become not that significant due to route changes, the sea freights might just continue to use sea route.
2018-05-29 10:03
Already said many times CalvinTanEng a cheat. Why i3 members including EPF and Tabung Haji conned by him?
2018-05-29 10:09
also, work out the comparison against kra canal. how much time saving ecrl have compare to the idea of kra canal.
2018-05-29 10:09
after scrapping HSR, when we meet China later, tell China's Xi
"See, we know you si bek boh song Singapore for supporting US, you left Singapore out from One Belt Economy, we fully understand China feeling, hence we also help China to lay a kick on Singapore butt by scrapping the HSR, now lets give us better terms for ECRL, commit your number arriving at Kuantan ports to by-pass PAPpy government to justify the construction cost, payment terms need to be revised according to completion stages, money from Exim Bank must flow into our country first, not direct pay to your contractor which put us on disadvantage, we help you, you help us, let Singapore die cat, lol".
2018-05-29 10:21
so those who so support the project, you want to foot the bill for the big project? Locals can't afford the tickets, so that means is a losing money venture, of course there are spilling effect from the projects, BUT the point is who is going to pay to service the debt from the tickes? Is the govt bcoz ticket fees won't be able to cover it. So if govt no money to service debt or need to service the debt, it means that subsidies for rakyats will have to be reduced OR new taxes will have to be introduced
2018-05-29 10:34
Singapore trade volume with us so ciput, that why Tun can decide immediately to scarp HSR deal.
China trade , I doubt we dare to offend them at the moment. If China boycott our products, we immediately die cat. Where we want to channel the excess of our exports to ?
I was thinking, if really backfire with China, do we have any backup plan in short term ?
2018-05-29 10:35
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