Liow: CRCC not a shareholder in special-purpose vehicle, Zenith
GEORGE TOWN: The China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) has confirmed that it was never a shareholder in the special-purpose vehicle (SPV) for the proposed RM6.3 billion Penang undersea tunnel project.
The company also said it was not a shareholder in th eSP V’ s parent company, Zenith Construct ionSdnBhd, or had dealt with the Penang government for the project, which included an undersea tunnel and threepaired roads.
This was conveyed to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai by top officials of CRCC during his recent visit to China to attend the 1st Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Civil Aviation and a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing.
Liow said the top CRCC officials were eager to stress certain points to him as they had been informed and briefed on the controversy regarding the Penang tunnel and three paired roads project.
“CRCC has neither given approval nor has knowledge of why the Penang government had considered them as shareholders of the project’s SPV.
“The company said they had only signed an ‘acknowledgment of commitment’ as an appendix to a preliminary agreement of the project, that they will deliver the project should they be awarded any portion of the project by th eSP V ,” he added.
Liow said until today, CRCC had been preliminarily contracted with the SPV to be the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor, and had also been given a contract by the SPV to perform detailed design reports for a total of US$22 million for the three roads and undersea tunnel.
“CRCC also gives an assurance that the unique circumstances of the Penang tunnel and three paired roads project cannot, and shall not, be used as a measure of their performance, and that CRCC will deliver its commitments for any current or future contracted projects as per agreed schedules and budget.”