OCT 20 — The 18 major highways in the country simultaneously increased their toll rates from October 15, the margin of increase between 15 per cent and 200 per cent. Given the domino effect, the impact this will have on the country’s business sector will be immeasurable.

At a time the ringgit value continues to decline and commercial activities are sluggish, the toll hike is set to perk up the transportation cost of many manufacturers. To ordinary citizens, higher toll rates will aggravate their already heavy day-to-day financial burden.

This problem has been plaguing the government as well as motorists for many years now, showing that the public are indeed very unhappy with the exorbitant toll rates. This also highlights the fact that there is marked disparity between the concessionary agreements and the aspirations of ordinary citizens. It is imperative that the government give due attention to this matter and review the contracts it has signed with highway concessionaires as soon as possible.

Although the government has come up with large sums of compensation every a few years in order not to aggravate the burden of the people, this nevertheless will not resolve the issue. Other than allowing the concessionaires to continue bagging in handsome profits and for the national treasury to keep bleeding, the public never enjoy the least of benefits.

As a matter of fact, the government must review all he contracts it has signed with the highway concessionaires, removing all the unfair clauses in the agreements in order to resolve the issue of escalating highway tolls once and for all.

The problem could be attributed to the non-transparent agreements signed between the government and highway concessionaires in the past, allowing them to revise the toll rates every year or every several years, otherwise the government would have to make up their losses with astronomical sums of compensation.

The current administration has the obligation to rectify whatsoever discrepancies in the contracts instead of squarely denying their responsibility. Even though reviewing the concessionary contracts might entail large sums of money and highly intricate procedures, the government is still duty-bound to look into the feasibility of such reviews.

All contracts should allow spaces for reviews, especially those involving public interests. The government should look into this from two perspectives: whether the concessionaires have got back their returns, as well as the vehicular traffic and operating / maintenance cost.

Although the highway concessionaires are entitled to increase their toll rates as per the agreements, given the fact that the number of car owners in Malaysia is rising every year, these companies should have made respectable profits from some of the more heavily used urban toll highways, and as such the government should reject their requests to further increase toll rates or extend their toll collection periods.

Large sums of compensation made to highway concessionaires have since become a bottomless pit to the government. It is imperative that the government conduct a structural review of problematic clauses in the agreements in order to solve the problem once and for all so as not to incur further public wrath.

The government must also pick up a lesson from here to re-look the entire highway privatisation policy, and to be more transparent and accountable when signing new contracts in the future.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.