Media Statements by Tony Pua, Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara and DAP National Publicity Secretary in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, 26 January 2015 KIDEX has hit the nail on its own coffin by refusing to publicly disclose its highway concession agreement Yesterday, The Malay Mail Online reported that Kidex Sdn Bhd has agreed to reveal details of its highway concession agreement only to the Selangor government and not the general public. “We are prepared to publicly disclose the concession agreement, but only to the Selangor mentri besar and state legal advisors,” Kidex Sdn Bhd chief operating officer Dr Shaharizuan Shafiei. This is in response to state Menteri Besar Azmin Ali’s recent demand that the developer of the Kinrara-Damansara Expressway (Kidex) publicly disclose its concession deal if it wants Selangor to even consider reviewing the project. The failure of Kidex to comply with the clear and strict conditions by the Selangor state government would automatically mean that the highway project will not even be considered for approval, much less be given the approval to proceed. In the Menteri Besar’s first official visit to Petaling Jaya on the 31 October 2014, he had outlined clearly the terms by which Kidex and any other new highways have to comply before being given consideration by the state government. The Menteri Besar had said that the Selangor state government is not against the construction of highways, any highway to be built must prove itself beneficial to the rakyat. As such, certain conditions must be met including: a) The concessionaire must provide a traffic impact and other relevant studies demonstrating substantial benefit for commuters in terms of reducing traffic congestion and travel time. b) There must be full transparency on the rate of return of the highway including the toll rates to be charged. This is to ensure that there will be no astronomical profits for the concessionaire and unfair burden on the users. c) In line with the transparency and accountability practice of the state government, Azmin Ali also demanded that the concession agreement must be fully disclosed to the public. Hence Kidex’s “agreement” to reveal its concession agreement only to the Menteri Besar and his legal advisors clearly fell short of what is required of the concessionaire to meet the transparency and accountability standards of the state government. As such, should Kidex fail to comply to these conditions which has been formally informed to both the Malaysian Highway Authority as well as the concessionaire by the stipulated February 14th deadline, then Kidex has hammered its own nail on its coffin. At the same time, we call upon the Federal Government to reject the Kidex request to extend the deadline again since it is unable to fulfil the conditions stipulated by the state and hence automatically failed to fulfil the conditions precedents of the highway concession agreement.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 10:47:00 +0000
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