Critics of toll rate reduction are envious: Guan Eng
GEORGE TOWN: Those who are critical of the 18% toll rate reduction on all PLUS highways for private vehicles are just out to confuse the people, says Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.
“These people are envious that the present government has managed to reduce it (the toll),” he said after attending a Chinese New Year open house hosted by Bukit Gelugor MP Ramkarpal Singh yesterday.
Such critics have conveniently left out the need to pay compensation if the tolls are abolished now and the cost savings which the government has managed to muster, Lim said.
“It is financially impossible to abolish tolls now.
“What we could salvage is to reduce the tolls and the 18% discount is in effect until the concession period ends.”
Based on the 18% reduction across the board for the PLUS highways and the extension of the concessionaire period, Lim said there is a savings of RM43 billion.
“It is because we provided the notion of a discounting factor (where the government managed to secure a delayed payment schedule to the creditor – owners of PLUS – for a defined period).”
By extending the concession period, he said, the government would in theory save on the compensation it needed to incur when settling its dues with PLUS.
Lim said the critics took a simplistic view of the toll reduction issue.
The minister said the toll rate was never reduced during the tenure of the previous government.
Earlier, MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong had questioned Lim over his statement that the toll reduction was a step-by-step move by the government towards the abolishing of tolls.
“How can the finance minister say toll will be abolished when the government has extended PLUS’ concession period by 20 years till 2058?” Wee said in a statement yesterday.
PLUS’ original concession was set to expire in 2038 and it was extended after it agreed to reduce toll rates by 18% and also to freeze all future toll hikes.
Adding to this, Wee alleged that Lim failed to mention that the 18% discount is funded in large part by Employees Provident Fund contributors via lower yearly dividends as EPF will no longer benefit from the yearly compensation paid by the government to PLUS.
“With this new arrangement, EPF contributors are subsiding the 18% discount for toll users and also subsidizing the government every year.”
The highways that have cut their toll rates include the North-South Expressway, NKVE, ELITE, Linkedua, LPT2, Seremban-Port Dickson Highway, Butterworth-Kulim Expressway and Penang Bridge.