Loke wants Scomi to settle dispute with Prasarana

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite being terminated as contractors for the RM494mil Rapid KL Monorail upgrade project, Scomi Engineering Bhd is not off the hook, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

“They (Scomi) had a meeting with me yesterday (Monday), and I told them they must be prepared to come to the negotiation table to settle the dispute with Prasarana Malaysia Bhd.

“I do not want this dispute to go on at the public’s expense,” he told reporters after visiting the Tun Sambanthan monorail station here yesterday.

He said that Scomi will have to seek a compromise with Prasarana, the operator of Rapid KL Monorail, before a solution is brought to the Cabinet for approval by the end of the year.

The solution, he said, included the project being tendered out to a foreign company to repair the existing trains and supply new ones if both parties are still at a deadlock.

If the issue is resolved, he said the improved rapid rail services would be operational by early 2019.

Under the 2014 project, Loke said Scomi was responsible for upgrading the monorail stations, developing a depot and supplying 12 sets of four-car trains for Prasarana’s monorail service.

However, he said that only five sets began operations in 2016, with five incidents of parts falling off four trains, which occurred between May and November last year.

“All five trains were grounded for two months after the incident. But when the operations resumed, three more incidents of parts falling off the trains happened again as at January this year,” he said.

Owing to the legal dispute and termination of the contract, Loke said that all trains had been grounded over the last nine months.

At present, he said that Prasarana is only operating five sets of two cars, averaging a ridership of 37,093 passengers daily compared to 71,943 in 2015, 63,614 in 2016 and 48,748 last year.

Loke’s visit to the monorail station comes in the wake of calls by the public for him to improve the service.

On Oct 1, Loke rode the LRT for the first time and pledged to improve the service, including using it to get him to work whenever possible.