Pakatan derails KL-Singapore high-speed train

Rafizi Ramli announces Pakatan's plan for a high-speed interstate railway system instead.

FULL REPORT

PETALING JAYA: The opposition today criticised the RM13 billion joint-venture between the Malaysian and Singaporean governments to complete a high-speed rail link by 2020.

PKR strategy advisor Rafizi Ramli instead announced Pakatan Rakyat’s plan for a high-speed interstate railway system that will be a part of their Election 2013 manifesto to be released on Monday.

“BN’s mandate is going to expire within one or two months. There should not be any heavy financial commitments made,” he told reporters here.

“Even if BN stays in power, the concession conditions will burden the people heavily. The money should instead be spent on creating a national bullet train system,” he added.

Rafizi said Pakatan’s interstate system will connect major cities from Perlis to Johor Bahru, as well as east coast to west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

“The Pakatan Manifesto to build a high-speed interstate railway system will be a long-term development carried out over several phases,” he said.

“This project puts the people’s priority first… This will continue to be the main difference between BN and Pakatan,” he added.

Rafizi admitted Pakatan was not wholly against the BN high-speed rail link project, but stressed the country “needs a backbone” and the “urgency is to connect cities to cities”.

He questioned the decision to have only two stops (Kuala Lumpur and Singapore) after laying out the necessary railway infrastructure along the route, which he said will take up around 70 percent of the total construction cost.

Enriching cronies

Rafizi likened Najib’s last-minute deals to those undertaken by his predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had signed away two offshore oil blocks to Brunei which were potentially worth billions of ringgits.

“This only strengthens the perception that BN is not confident of forming the next government and as such various concessions and contracts are being handed out to cronies.

“The announcement of the KL-Singapore high-speed rail link project should also be seen in the same context,” he said.

He added that a proposal for such a high-speed rail link was first mooted by YTL Corporation Bhd which he claimed has ties to the ruling coalition.

Rafizi claimed that YTL had a few years ago said that the project would cost at least RM8 billion but he speculated that the cost could now hit RM13 billion.

“The RM13 billion will have more meaning to the people if the high-speed rail link would reduce travel time between cities in the country,” he said.

“Less use of private vehicles will lead to less traffic congestions and less fuel subsidy from the government,” he said.