ECRL GETS NOD, BUT NEEDS PRICE REVIEW
Govt has paid RM20 billion for it, says Guan Eng
THE controversial China-backed East Coast Railway Line (ECRL) project has been given a reprieve by the government as RM20 billion of the project cost has been paid, subject to a renegotiation of the price tag, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng told news portal The Malaysian Insight.
The Pakatan Harapan government had announced plans to scrap the project because of its cost of RM60 billion to RM70 billion, which various estimates claimed could be completed for under RM40 billion.
Lim was quoted as saying in the interview that the government was “still undecided” on whether to proceed or defer the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR).
Prior to further discussions with Singapore, he said the attorney-general had been tasked with investigating the legal aspects of the projects.
“In the ECRL, we have paid RM20 billion.
“So, it doesn’t make sense to scrap it because we’ve paid RM20 billion.”
Lim, however, could not reveal the terms of the ECRL contract and how much reduction in cost the government was trying to negotiate.
“Let us discuss this first. We cannot have these discussions in public.
“The negotiations have to be done behind closed doors.”
In an earlier report, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad described the ECRL project as a strange contract, as Malaysia had to fund the project with a loan from China, while hiring contractors from China, as opposed to drawing down the loan in Malaysia and paying it to the foreign company’s local subsidiary.