This is a truly a year of price hikes. Joining the announced impending hike of RON97 prices is a new announcement that toll rates are going to go up. The Malaysian government has approved a toll rate hike for 5 highways, according to Works Minister Mohamad Zin Mohamad. It has not been revealed yet how much exactly the rate increase will be, but the following are the highways that are expected to have their rates hiked:
- PLUS North-South Expressway – approximately 5%
- Sprint Highway, Kerinchi Link and Damansara Link – up 30 and 50 sen for Pantai and Damansara respectively
- Ampang-Kuala Lumpur Expressway – up 50 sen
- Sungai Besi Highway (Besraya) – up 10 sen
- New Pantai Expressway – up 40 sen
Mohamed Zin said the increase was actually due in January 2008 but the government had compensated the toll concessionaires a total of RM 277 million to postpone the toll hike until 1st of March 2009 (a total of 14 months), when the hikes are scheduled to happen. Of the 277 million, the lion’s share of 177 million goes to PLUS.
Our PM Pak Lah in his last month of service has said he will ask the Cabinet to reconsider the toll hikes as the decision is not “appropriate at current situations” (why can’t these factors be considered before an announcement, perhaps it’s symbolic as Pak Lah’s last flip flop during his tenure), while Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng says the hike should be postponed at least another 2 years.
Frankly, you can call these companies greedy but they have shareholders to answer to so why not take the opportunity to earn more when it is allowed legally in black and white? The only ones to blame are whoever signed those toll agreements!
DAP has an interesting proposal – buy PLUS shares and make it toll-free after the year 2015. Read here, here and here.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
another not so great news during this bad year.
Well I spent 4 hours looking through the agreements, nothing to it, simply a bad agreement. And both parties are locked in for 50 yrs.
alamakkkk.. bertambah miskin lah akuu..
Govt only know how to squeeze our rakyat.
Unbelievable… but am speechless.
Really disappointed with the way our country is being runned right now. Vote for change and "they" still manage to "change" the changes we voted for.
And now this.
WTH…I think the G is running out of idea and the ministers are totally FAILURE and CRAP.
200% lost of confidence of this bloody G
They only know how to increase,increase,increase…but NOT decrease. never think about the consequence.
This is the way they make money and RAKYAT is at one side…..coz they already countdown 4 years to be replaced and booted out.
How can the G increase toll when the economic is not at the right situation, the same thing happened last year and few years back. Terrible! Disappointed to our country
Macamane la orang2 kerajaan ni pikir?? kate nak tolong rakyat tapi sebaliknyer….So untuk tahun ni sama la kite suma suffer….
Announce price hike and then announce will consider delay hike?
Political presentation.
what? no!
not AKLEH.. rm1.50 is already mahal now naik lagi 50sen.
*sigh*
This is not a political presentation, it just shows how foolish and childish our GOV is.
This is the countless time they push thru an announce of change and to back off from it within hours !
For goodness sake, they are SUPPOSE to run a country, not a nasi lemak stall. They aren't even qualified to run a nasi lemak stall.
sape2 yg ble naik moto, kite naik moto.
hah..cm tipu je dr dulu xpulang modal konsesi?!
hiway kalu bes xpe la. ni hiway pn jem!
jammed-way!
well.. agree with Paul, we should shoot the man who signed all those toll agreements.. as a rakyat or layman, we trusted the G we elected (well, the majority of us) to do the best for us & country.. why should we signed something that obviously give our elected contractors/concessionaire the upper hand? ridiculous. anyway, i already smell something fishy when they closed 2 toll h/way a few week ago & now wallah… 5 go up…
no worry, the drama just started, our beloved PM will bring this up to cabinet, they bla bla bla bla… & come up with win-win solution (yeah right)… & announced the new toll rates… believe me it'll go up but not as announced earlier.. a bit lesser… so some fools will say "yeah, the increase is not that much, our G is 'prihatin', they've do their best to keep them low"… & this Sohai actually thank the G… what an idiot… our history showed that rakyat always lose… i think this will actually happen, wanna bet?
so u see, this is a perfect win-win solution… Concessionaire Win by getting their toll increase & G win by looking good in the eyes of rakyat… and we lose… LOL… it happen before, no need to flash back that far.. remember the June 2008 fuel hikes? actually, i can't believe that there's some fools who now thanks our G for the fuel price cut.. bloody idiots…
Since when they care for the rakyat. We are doomed.
Bloody blood sucking cronies!
Daylight robbery from our g, since g has compensated d toll 1 year b4 why not another year especially this bad economic year? Whats next? another fuel
price hike…
Closed 2 tolls but increase 5 tolls charges, like pad yr head 1st & then slap yr
face. Its time to change !!
The Government should consider lowering the roadtax since toll raises. At least for private owned vehicles / domestic cars above 2500cc… roadtax are killing us too!
where to get the money to buy PLUS? Are u crazy to issue bonds and to get more debts that will pay by the future generation of Malaysians by tax or other means? Are you going to be the Next Phillipines or worst still American? a nation of debtors and paupers for more than 100 years… i think politicians need to learn economics back to basic and understand the charts and theories… it is ridiculous to have politician who do not understand the fundamentals of economic and giving thoughts that a kindergarten kid can laugh!!…. hoping to see 31 March or earlier the sea of change, too much damage have done by stubborn old man and his cut, copy and paste whizz kids from oxford and cambridge! Politicians from a postman and massage therapists background, i doubt they do understand the economics of a nation but it seems they pretty well understand the economics of their own purses!!!
Boleh Land(2 thumbs up)
G need more $$ to buy back Perak ma…dun u guys see?
williaml said,
February 27, 2009 @ 8:33 am · Reply with quote
Govt only know how to squeeze our rakyat.
———————–
how about rakyat also squeeze govt for more??
can get free highways no tolls… but prepare to pay more taxes… as building and maintaining those highways need money.. lots of them…
BTW it's not like those highways are the only way to get to where u want to go… there are always alternative roads.. maybe not PLUS.. but then the increment is only 0.68 cent per KM not even 1 cent..
those highway r built so ppl can reach destination faster… of coz to reach destination faster u hav to pay more… same like internet… in u wanna cheap one go for dial up… cheap and very slow… want faster take broadband say 1 Mbps… u have to pay a little bit more…say RM 68 per month… want faster take the 4 Mbps ones… ummm RM 228 per months….. get the idea??
it's not like i'm saying it is right to increase the toll rate at this time… but if ur argument is about how economy in down, stuff prices increases.. but it is not only experienced by you… the highway's company also experienced increased in maintenance cost… so they have to charge more…
Whatever the reason, now is not the right time to increase. Hopeless govt…
'GOOD DECISION BY OUR LOVELY G!! AGAIN'
kedarah duit rakyat..sedut dan sedut again..rakyat papa takpe..janji 'kerokni' kaya raya
Yup, shoot the guy who sign the stupid agreement.. I think Semi Value involved a lot of these agreement during his days.. Well, just remember to do your responsibility next election. Later something like this happen again, you keep on complaining.. I am sad that a lot of youngster living in big city especially non-bumi are not taking their responsibility well.. Change is in ur hands!
the former ppl in perak know how to make their own money..are the state's brand new spanking black toyota camrys are part of their negotiated retirement package when they first step in? Well i can say Japan 1 Malaysia 0
Banzai Toyota!!
Littlefire,
some ppl afraid of changes… that's the fact :)
we vote for you but then you give us a gift like this?
yaaa….thanks a lot
next time we'll give our vote to other side.
What is funny is, the toll hike must have approval from the cabinet in cabinet meeting. Yesterday, all the menteri including PM make their face like they are truly shock on this. Do they sleep during the meeting? Think about it.
I think they wanna use the money from those concessionaires as sumbangan pilihanraya for the 3 by-elections.
azrai,
exactly… it's all a drama… *&%$#
soon im gonna feel that the federal highway gonna increase again since quite sometimes the tolls stay RM1.00/RM1.10…haha…and then when petrol RON95 and RON97 is being introduced…first few months, price stays the same..but after that…increase again….reason from the BIG BOSSES??..coz too many users using RON95..so have to supply alot and expensive transportation+increment of toll=increase petrol price….hahaha….
Another own goal for the govt again.
In view of the bad news, maybe we can take some good out of this.
Since the drop of petrol price, everyone is going on the roads again and traffic jams have gotten worst. With the increase in toll, lets hope that there would be a slight reduce in traffic volume.
Btw, what happened to the promise of allocating our subsidies to improve our public transport. Seems like the KTM komuter and LRTs are packed as ever and never on time
the G already delay the price hike for 14 months, so i think the hike is reasonable, as long as the increase is not too much.
Solution: Use Alternative Road.. Traffic Jam? Time management is the answer. The toll is not belong to the Government, its belong to the Consession.
armanndd,
can i ask u what's the justification for the toll increase? h/ways not generating enuff money? better service? the news said the increase was due last year so this mean there's an agreement between G & concessionaire on that. to cut thing short, just shoot the man. dammmit!
(see.. i told u so, there's already someone thanks our G)
Some of us always blame the G without knowing the real issue… As an example, our Gov have a plan to build new highway, but dont have money. so our G will appoint any consession to design, built and operate the highway, so they (concession) will charge until they get their money back.. Why not we blame the consession? boycott or something else, maybe use motorbike.. same thing happen when u blame Proton without knowing the real thing :)
I saw in a local daily one of the comments from one datuk (can't remember), he said "Dulu masa jadi menteri tak pernah bayar tol, sekarang kena bayar tol terasa bebanan"…. i was like, WTF?!! Only now u f**king realise?! We small fellas have been paying for tols day in day out!
most ppl want improvement…
improvement = money…
if money goes to —-> compensation of those highway's company..
then less money for improvement…
so + toll – compensation = more money for improvement…
so let see if there will be improvement… ^-^
this only hapens here , during slowdown u want to encourage spending,thus reduce taxes,reduce interest rates,reduce tolls , but no , greed is the new religion….unbelievable
[quote comment="215743"]Unbelievable… but am speechless.
Really disappointed with the way our country is being runned right now. Vote for change and "they" still manage to "change" the changes we voted for.
And now this.[/quote]
niama, all the goods price jack up, and most of us keep losing jobs, the G comes up with excellent plans to save us, charge petrol tax and hike up the toll.
C****, when we no money want G for wat?
After this month i have to reduce my food budget to rm 0.40 – rm 0.60 due to spend for my toll money.
haiz,it looked like i cant have a plate of rice with mamak chicken as i xcukup rm 0.60 cents to buy it. pity me ><".
thx Pak Lah for all the "good" contribution that have been made for malaysia.
thx i love u so much.so so so much.
[quote comment="215773"] I think Semi Value involved a lot of these agreement during his days..
[/quote]
I made him signed the damn agreement?
[quote comment="215807"][quote comment="215773"] I think Semi Value involved a lot of these agreement during his days..
[/quote]
sorry what made him signed the damn agreement?[/quote]
aahuh… i heard that the G lend the money to some Concessionaire to build the h/way… eh very good, if we have the money, better let someone else do it for us than do it ourself.. yeah right… if we can't do it, why not ask for help? ever heard of consultancy firm? said G got no money to build h/way… why give money to them to do & signed those ridiculous agreement… now we stuck with that dumbass agreement & doomed… thanks.. so it is afterall the case of blaming without not knowing the real issue… sigh
Income Tax just went up for me, based on the new IRB table.
Prices of Goods went up last year, with the increase of fuel prices, but it never came down. Government made a big deal to push it down, the Hypermarkets brought the prices down, but otherwise, things are still expensive. And then G forgot about it, and we don't hear about it in the press anymore.
Now, toll prices have increased. G would've taken the effort to do something about it. If they can do it last year, why not this year? If "Rakyat" is on their minds, then do something about it. Otherwise, don't say everything is for "rakyat". It's hypocritical – this after it's been announced that YTL's ERL is subsidized?? C'mon… They save their buddies' butts, but never the Rakyat. Very Cheneyish of them.
And now, with the impending economic problems, they still just agreed with the agreements without any fight at all. 100,000 expected jobless. No increments for a lot employees. Factories closing down.
This is OUR government??? Arrogant. Selfish. Sombong Bodoh. Go figure.
Our life are getting hard these days, we are not like someone who can afford to drive the Brabus, we are just regular "Rakyat" who has to deal the hard life… know we should do it right thing, we need to change, change to better future…
We have a good company, it is just that we have bad management issue…
I think first of all building highways are doing national service which means it is suppose to minimize burden of a growing city and minimal burden to the public. You can make a profit but not until skyhigh as the matter affect just minimum profit and just enough money to maintain the road system.
Secondly, due the BN continual attitude to screw the taxpayer, agreements are heavily in favour of price increase annually if not the gov't foot in the bill which either way is taxing the public!
I do not know if there is deliberate fraud carried out but any way these contracts are meant to fatten to wallets of cronies and their masters from certain quarters. Shame on them, hope they can bring this ill gotten gains to the next life.
I think paul should start a new blog for Bike & motorcycles.
osh_kosh said,
February 27, 2009 @ 2:50 pm · Reply with quote
aahuh… i heard that the G lend the money to some Concessionaire to build the h/way… eh very good, if we have the money, better let someone else do it for us than do it ourself.. yeah right… if we can’t do it, why not ask for help? ever heard of consultancy firm? said G got no money to build h/way… why give money to them to do & signed those ridiculous agreement… now we stuck with that dumbass agreement & doomed… thanks.. so it is afterall the case of blaming without not knowing the real issue… sigh
————————————————————–
If the previous minister didnot sign the agreement between the concession, we still dont have Highways, because the concession also want some profit for them, for their CEO. The G already consider everything, with traffic management plan and so on. I also pay the tolls, like all of u. Then, what to do? change our lifestyle is the best solution.
But why some toll still maintain same tolls price like LDP (Lambat dan Perlahan) because the concession(G****A) already got RM1million ++ perday. it is enough for them.
Anyway, the person related to all this is Semi Value, MMR2 also waste a lot of our money previously under him.
The toll operators are raising toll not because their costs are going up or they are losing money. It is because they can. And they can, because our govt says they can. Our govt says they can because our govt signed an agreement with them that all of us are not able to see.
Let us look at it in greater detail: My first reaction was that either our govt was stupid for allowing itself to be fooled into signing or there was something to be gained by signing the agreements, which points to corruption, because the people definitely did not gain.
So now we have established that someone or a group of people gained and not the rakyat, and thus we, the whole nation are suffering. This theory is also reinforced by the fact that the agreements are classified. If it was such a good agreement which benefit us all, it would surely be publiscised, instead of being classified. That means they knew that these agreements were bad agreements, but somehow they had to have them signed.
So now we have so called "very skilled and successful" tycoons going round telling the whole world and lecturing us how to succeed in bussiness. They are praised and decorated with all kinds of awards because of their success. Little did we know that they have been sucking our money, with subsidies and lospsided contracts. Remember, the next time you travel by air, part of your airport tax goes to a group of billionaires who do nothing but collect.
Where have we as country, gone so very wrong??
[quote comment="215826"]osh_kosh said,
February 27, 2009 @ 2:50 pm · Reply with quote
Dear "Open_Minded", pls think for a second. Does the Government conduct open tender when they award concessionaires with contracts. If they were to do it, I am very sure that the price of toll would not be so high. The problem with all the toll fiasco is that when the agreement is made, basically the people's interest were not taken into consideration. They were only worried about enriching their cronies!
————————————————————–
If the previous minister didnot sign the agreement between the concession, we still dont have Highways, because the concession also want some profit for them, for their CEO. The G already consider everything, with traffic management plan and so on. I also pay the tolls, like all of u. Then, what to do? change our lifestyle is the best solution.
But why some toll still maintain same tolls price like LDP (Lambat dan Perlahan) because the concession(G****A) already got RM1million ++ perday. it is enough for them.
Anyway, the person related to all this is Semi Value, MMR2 also waste a lot of our money previously under him. [/quote]
Open Mind,
i'm not saying that we should not sign the agreement altogether… like i said before, as a layman I trusted our G do the right thing… we don't know the agreement at that time so obviously we have no choice but to trust them… expect them to study every details & make the decision that's the best for 'rakyat' not concessionaire… the thing is from time to time we can only see that Concessionaire have the upper hand.. G excuse was always the same, IT'S ON AGREEMENT!! wtf, don't give the lame 'change your lifestyle' statement… bullsh*T
gov should consider DAP's proposal.. i do think it might works.. even tho if it didn't work exactly as what they wanted, it should help us a bit.. in terms of saving money.. hehe..
=)
longjaafar
see my comments, the documents are available for public to see… everything transparent now after we got new minister.
read first then comment…
toll sucks big time..
Oil price is going down, cost cutting every where, people losing a job (including Perak MB and Exco). Interest rate is down. More car companies is closing. Economy become bad. Mini budget is coming soon shuld be helping people may be..Toll rate is increasing. When BN win, something will be naik dulu kini dan selama nya…remember PERAK.
Very clever Minister well done! Actually I though PM/TPM is more power full than Work Minister, but they not. ZZZzzzzzz.
biggie said,
February 27, 2009 @ 8:30 am · Reply with quote
another not so great news during this bad year.
Well I spent 4 hours looking through the agreements, nothing to it, simply a bad agreement. And both parties are locked in for 50 yrs.
—————————————————–
where is the agreement? can u post it here? or paste the link here.. so we can read through …
Apparently the scheduled toll rates hike may be put on HOLD following the Prime Minister’s comment late last night.
If our minister knows anything about economy, he wont stupidly say the word about "ask the seller to reduce milo price" since it wont work! We can choose not to drink milo! The open economy is a free, but our monopolized item like Oil, Tol is killing all the public. We dont have good transportation, so we need to support our national car program in buying expensive car price, then we have to pay tol to every road outside our house, and road tax, and then Oil tax! This whole thing will be recorded in the history as the biggest culprit to make the public suffered..and there is still people voting to them! and also buying things from those non-responsible company that run the tol since the financial result sucks that the only way is raise the controlled item in Tol! Shareholder my a$$, who is the major share holder? This companies should be boy-cott by the public!
Open Mind, G has no money? you want us to believe we sent people to the space has no money? (and what does that been achieved btw?) It purely a sign of no intelligent to manage the economic in a whole or should i say the intelligent to manage flow direction to own pocket.
[quote comment="215790"] Some of us always blame the G without knowing the real issue… As an example, our Gov have a plan to build new highway, but dont have money. so our G will appoint any consession to design, built and operate the highway, so they (concession) will charge until they get their money back.. Why not we blame the consession? boycott or something else, maybe use motorbike.. same thing happen when u blame Proton without knowing the real thing :) [/quote]
Boycott? Are you crazy? The concessionaire will use that argument to ask money (compensation) from the G. Either way we the RAKYAT loose.
[quote comment="215792"]I saw in a local daily one of the comments from one datuk (can't remember), he said "Dulu masa jadi menteri tak pernah bayar tol, sekarang kena bayar tol terasa bebanan"…. i was like, WTF?!! Only now u f**king realise?! We small fellas have been paying for tols day in day out![/quote]
Who is the 'smart' guy?
Biggie:
Yes, we can see SOME agreements but not all. How many years did we have to wait to see the agreements? And my question to you is: what's the point of showing it to us only after signing and getting committed. Do you know that there are other concession agrrements that we still cannot see? The ERL agreement is still a no no.
Which minister are you referring to? The one that allowed us to see the agreemnts and went ahead to increase toll , only to be stopped by his boss?
john mclane said,
February 27, 2009 @ 5:04 pm · Reply with quote
Open Mind, G has no money? you want us to believe we sent people to the space has no money? (and what does that been achieved btw?) It purely a sign of no intelligent to manage the economic in a whole or should i say the intelligent to manage flow direction to own pocket.
———————————————————
next time, you should watch and read Annual Budget. the G not totally spend the money to Angkasawsan only, but for Education, Health and bla bla.. I also not agree with angkasawan programme, but as far as i know, at the moment the angkasawan "roket saya lebih laju" was at the galaxy, so many malaysian proud of him.. Haiya.. next time read the annual budget la Bro..then you will know where the G spend the money… If you want the PurrFect Gov, play Sim City la Bro.. Aiyah..susahla ini macam..
Y still discuss this things? It "cancel" dy.
Good news guys!! I've heard that the G had just decided to call it off. No toll price hike at the moment as announced before. DPM will make a short announcement later today.
Time to look another party to help instead of BN.
who is open minded anyway? paul izzit?
muahaha
Heard the news? It will be postponed until the end of the year.
this is what happens when monkeys are left to take charge… we all go bananas!!
postponed? i suspect its because of the coming by-election!
I don't know what to say or political strategy. Only PM knows that.
[quote comment="215877"]postponed? i suspect its because of the coming by-election![/quote]
Of course. But still people will make sure the G will kalah again.
red7,
if that's the case then I hope they'll be another by-election when the time to increase the toll price come again…
they just wanna to test the respond from the citizen i think..
-wl-
there is a country call England where all the highways are toll free
maybe you guys want to move there instead?
ooh wait.maybe you want to curse the uk goverment for high income tax instead??
obviously the announcement is a tactic of the government to make pak Lah looks like a hero before he comes down. so why jump like beruk already?
and also DAP got a good proposal going.. I do hope its complete though.
toll free by 2015 does sound amazing. but comes 2015 we'll start hearing monkeys screaming again when the then government have ito ncrease other taxes to cover your "toll free highways".
imagine the hundreds of millions government used to maintain low toll price is used to improve our public transport, i wonder how that works out.
I just hope the toll will increase alot. So that the one who use it is the one who really have the capacity to use it. Like Petrol. When the petrol strike high last year, even the federal highway suddenly no traffic. I miss that time.Just tax the oil. The more petrol we use the high tax we pay…. or maybe we can be like singapore, increase the road tax.. So that not many ppl buy car!! i just hope we can be like that.than the money will go to the high quality tar, improve our road, makes it 3 lane at least even at the small road. Improve our road facilities. Put more road side light. Improve our traffic light and make it more high tech and systematic.i just hope that our road will be like singapore.. really syok!! i love the Singaporean ways drove their car. they behave they are discipline, they have style when taking turn to right, they just the perfect driver in the world. but, only in their country.. muahahahaha.. come here 180 – 200KM/h… we should tax them also by using our road.. they tax us when we go there. why not we tax them. RM20/day for each car could support the nearly half million to the concession. and also improve our registring system for cars, and detect all cars who dont paid their summon.
Direct toll collection increase is canceled. However G will have to pay money to the highway concessionaires, and that money will have to come from our tax money.
So directly or not, toll increase is still on, and we people will still pay. And pay. And pay,pay…..
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 (Bernama) — The cabinet today defered the increase in toll rates for five highways to end of the year, said Works Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Zin Mohamed in Kuala Lumpur today.
ITS ALL BN GOVERNMENT'S STUPIDITY !!!!!
the problem with our people
api = mahu free
air = mahu free
jalan = mahu free
jamba = mahu free
sekolah = mahu free
toll = mahu free
kahwin = mahu free
mati = mahu free!
pergi cambridge and oxford = mahu free…
proton =mahu free!
seks = mahu free juga…!!
sudah kumpul duit banyak2.. pergi singapore, UK and america pergi belanja…kasih orang lain kaya! Jadi suckers to other places…
other problems with malaysian: like to stereotypes and compare other races….nothing has changed for the past 50 years, cannot accept each other's achievements or other society need for help
overall… malaysians are "muka free people" the motto, hidup mesti "free"