According to works minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi, removing tolls will financially burden the government and divert funds away from things like hospitals, schools and rural infrastructure.
“If you abolish tolls, the government will have to use its funds to maintain the roads, and they cost billions,” he said, as reported by NST. Nanta was responding to a question on whether tolls could ever be entirely abolished.
He also said his preferred model when it comes to tolls is one where concessionaires will no longer need to charge rates high enough to service debt. “It will be this way going forward. Even if the current operators were to hand them over to the government, the government will have to find other operators so that it will not be saddled with the financial responsibility to maintain those tolled roads,” he explained.
On a separate matter, Nanta stated that highways remain a key part of Malaysia’s infrastructure and economic backbone, but fewer will be built in favour of other modes of transport. This is part of plans to establish a smarter, more integrated public transport system aimed at providing Malaysians a genuine alternative to driving that is affordable, convenient and safe.
“We can have those (public transport) systems but if they are not affordable, people will still want to drive their cars or ride their motorcycles,” he said. As per the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) Blueprint 2030, Malaysia is moving away from isolated, siloed systems towards a fully integrated national transport ecosystem.
This has four strategic pillars, with Nanta pointing out that data-driven mobility and transport planning being the main challenges. “You cannot implement something that you hope to be the best at without proper planning, and you cannot plan properly without focusing on data,” he said, adding that synergy across federal agencies, state governments, local authorities, highway concessionaires and enforcement bodies is a greater obstacle than lack of technology.
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13 Feb 2020 — Source: The Edge. From 1999 to 2011, BN didn’t just extend the concessionary period for PLUS tolls. Worse, BN even allowed these toll rates to increase! In 1999, BN first extended the
PM Najib is the only PM ever to be convicted of corruption
Ini baru cakap fakta. Not like Madanon and Pony Tua during GE14. Suka suka saja cakap toll can abolish, PTPTN loans can be written off, etc. without any common sense.
Who’s actually dumber though. These liars, or the people who believed in these lies and voted for them.
Having tolled roads is OK, but why does the govt sign one sided agreements, that compels the govt to compensate the toll operators when they do not raise the toll rates? It’s like win win for the operators, and lose lose for the govt, and road users. For a start, de classify the toll agreements. Why is it such a big secret?
yeah why not if there’s political milage to claim? they have the power
You think building roads very cheap ar? there is cost of land acquisition, construction, maintenance, operations and debt repayment. it is not what you think where they made a lot of profit just by collecting toll. Just go ahead and look into their annual report. That’s why the Concession Agreements explicitly stated that the toll rates will be increased every few years to match inflation and traffic projections. if the Government don’t want the rates to be increase, the government has to either compensate the toll operators or extend the contract length. these toll operators took bank loan or bonds to raise funds to built these highways and it has to be repaid.
I dont believe politicians…
Who is supposed to pay for the maintenance of the roads and highways? If tolls get abolished should road taxes go up? Less than 20% of the working population pay taxes. Why should those who don’t pay get the use the roads? Driving is a privilege, not a right.
Interestingly the same overwhelming majority of non-tax payers are the one with more than 1 petrol drinking giller kerta ruining the roads and causing traffic. They can afford to pay more for fuel to power their inefficient nuisances but don’t want to pay taxes. The moment you say tax they will come up with all kinds of kesian talks about how lah income too lah, hari hari tak boleh makan lah.
Understand tht toll needed to maintain road, but some toll road has been existed quite long and yet it jams up madly during peak hours! For eg. NPE or Sprint Hway. Suggest tht:
1. identify which toll roads tht have been existed quite long in the KV area tht local hv no choice but need to use it daily.
2. Gment take over the toll road and assign existing toll operator to maintain it.
3. Reduce the toll rate just to cover the operating cost of maintaining the highway and be transparent.
4. Reduce toll booth in the same highway to reduce jam due to bottleneck to pay toll.
5. Make it a mission to takeover 1 toll road every 2 to 3 years to reduce the burden of road user and at the same time reduce jam.
Tq.
Point no. 3, so just maintain the road? no need to pay the massive loans or bonds that the concessionaire took? so the lender forgo the loans? then the concessionaire no need to pay overhead expenses like salary to the workers? talk so easy eh.
the problem is the unlimited extension of toll collection contract to the private companies (cronies to be exact). take a look at china, they give contract of 30 years, no more discussion to extend after that, and the infra company still have to take good care of the condition of the whole stretch of road, study their financial report, after contract expire, their income change from toll collection to advertisements and various rental income from r&r, and they also get annual allowance from government for maintaining the road conditions. whereas our cronies will say without toll collection money company will bankrupt.
Where you get your info that no more discussion for extension in China? The Shandong toll road is extended indefinitely.
Why not we have fewer corruptions and built more highway and abolish the tolls.
He is right