FEBRUARY 15 — The Say No to Kidex (SNTK) group is dismayed that the Federal Government has given Kidex Sdn Bhd a nine month extension from 15 Feb 2015 to 14 Nov 2015 to fulfil the condition precedents of the concession agreement.
Together with the previous three month extension from 15 Nov 2014 to 14 Feb 2015 and the original one year period given to Kidex Sdn Bhd to fulfil these conditions, the total time period granted by the Federal government is a whopping two years. Even more worrisome is that the Federal Government has not given any valid justification for any of the above extensions.
This unprecedented extension period in allowing a private company to fulfil condition precedents despite repeated failures is both unjustified and most certainly mala fide when viewed in a legal context with previous statements by Works Minister Datuk Fadhillah Yusof. It goes without saying that this also sets a dangerous precedent for future projects.
Firstly, one of the condition precedents according to the Works Ministry is the mandatory requirement for the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) to hold a town hall meeting. As confirmed by the Bukit Gasing ADUN himself, this was never done, and it still has yet to be done.
Since then, Kidex Sdn Bhd has had a further 270 days to organise a legally valid town hall meeting and failed to do so. Despite this, they blatantly lied to the public on January the 23rd 2015 claiming that they had fulfilled their condition precedents.
Secondly, Datuk Fadhillah himself said there would be no automatic renewals if the condition precedents were not fulfilled by the 15th of February 2015. He instead stated that the project would be referred back to the Prime Minister’s Department.
SNTK released a press statement putting the Works Minister on notice regarding these 2 points.
Thus, the callousness of the Federal government reneging on their own conditions is certainly appalling but not surprising, given that the independent report commissioned by MBPJ has revealed that Kidex initially received Cabinet approval prior to any formal studies or evaluation.
Moreover, that the Ministry of Transport’s Highway Planning Unit was not involved in this project and that there was no open tender process.
Kidex Sdn Bhd’s own data shows that not only will the LDP continue to remain gridlocked, but that Kidex itself will be in gridlock within 10 years of construction.
Worse yet, the Works Ministry has failed repeatedly in its mandate to rectify this issue despite being informed regarding the above failings. SNTK informed the Works Ministry in written form that the documents provided by the concessionaire lacked critical information (SNTK rebuttal of PEIA), and also that independently commissioned reports by the Environmental Law Alliance Wordwide on this expressway showed that it posed serious health concerns to the wellbeing of the public, especially to children. (ELAW Report)
SNTK is therefore condemning this act of extending the concession agreement period as an abuse of executive powers by the Federal government.
SNTK also feel that this move by the Federal government, in playing “pass the parcel”, puts this issue back to the Selangor government hands. The Selangor government has the final say in the matter as it has final say over land acquisition matters.
How then does the Selangor government intend to respond to this farce? We call upon the Selangor Menteri Besar to practise not only good governance and due process as codified within the Pakatan Buku Jingga manifesto, but more importantly to consider the unimpeachable evidence provided by independent third parties MDS and eLaw – that this project is not only an abject failure on multiple levels, but that it poses grave health risks to the public – particularly to children, and thus the future of the Rakyat.
