KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — The DAP has blasted the Najib administration for awarding a lucrative RM7 billion highway deal, to be tolled for a record 60 years, to a company known principally for making and selling granular and powder-activated carbon.
Public-listed Kumpulan Europlus Bhd (KEuro) told Bursa Malaysia late on Thursday it had also won a RM2.24 billion government soft loan and a three per cent interest subsidy on commercial loans for a period of 22 years, on top of Putrajaya paying RM980 million in land acquisition cost to join Banting in south Selangor a total 316km to Taiping in north Perak.
Industry observers have described the new highway project as the closest alternative to the congested North-South Expressway.
“This deal reeks of cronyism and this does not bode well for Najib’s transformation programme,” the opposition party lawmaker Tony Pua (picture) told The Malaysian Insider, speaking of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s New Economic Model (NEM) to make the country a high-income nation by 2020.
The PM has been seeking to burnish his credentials as a reformer and so spur Malaysia’s growth as a global an investment hub.
In the filing to Bursa Malaysia, KEuro disclosed that its subsidiary, West Coast Expressway Sdn Bhd (WCE), has received an approval letter dated the same day from the federal government to build and operate the Banting-Taiping highway for the next 60 years estimated to cost RM7.07 billion.
It said the 224km of the highway will be tolled compared to 92km that will be toll-free.
The public-listed company also disclosed receiving a RM2.24 billion government soft loan starting from next year and an interest subsidy of only three per cent on commercial loans for a period of 22 years to build the highway apart from the government bearing the estimated RM980 million in land acquisition cost for the highway project.
“This is shocking! Why [did they get] such good terms?” Pua asked.
“Taxpayers are being doubly abused. First, they will have to pay for the construction of the road and then will be asked to pay for the use of the road,” he said.
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DAP rakes Putrajaya over RM7b highway deal
January 28, 2012 – MI
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