KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Former international trade and industry minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz speculated that Putrajaya will discontinue the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) next, saying the project was more unfavourable than the cancelled Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR).

Speaking to Malay Mail in an exclusive interview yesterday, Rafidah questioned the wisdom behind ECRL’s development in the first place, dismissing the multi-billion mega-project project as having no real purpose.

“ECRL is in an even worse situation (when compared to the HSR) because already before it was announced the cost alone seemed unrealistic already. And in fact finally, the analysis shows that the final cost might be much more than that,” she said.

The rail project linking the east coast of the peninsula to the west is estimated to cost RM60 billion and was criticised by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who described the financing structure to be “strange”.

Dr Mahathir previously said that under the contract, Malaysia must fund the project with a RM55 billion loan from China while also hiring contractors from the country.

“Now, why do we need such a railway for the east coast? It’s not that the east coast is an industrial corridor. It’s not there’s a lot of cargo that must be brought through the whole length of the east coast into whatever final destination.

“Today we have Kuantan as a port, which means for short haul they can head to Kuantan and also air cargo, there’s always that,” Rafidah continued.

Rafidah, once known as Malaysia’s “Iron Lady” due to her reputation as a hard negotiator when she had been minister, added that a responsible government must weigh the costs and benefits before making any major decisions.

She explained that during her time as minister, cost-benefit analyses were standard before the government came up with new programmes, policies, investments and trade negotiations.  

“The cost is what we have to pay as a country and government while the benefit is to our target group — the people.

“It’s always like that. So if the cost benefit analysis has been done and it has shown that the cost far outweighs the benefits, given the long term then there’s no reason for continuing it,” Rafidah pointed out.

She said the analysis will be able to justify any decisions to review or even revoke mega-projects such as what has happened with HSR.