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
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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?