Considering the toll concessions — Hafidz Baharom

JUNE 13 — Word got out that the government is considering to raise toll rates, so of course the Klang Valley went amok.

While the prime minister is decrying ministers in his cabinet as traitors for leaking the information, let us move along and consider what and why toll rates are an issue in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area.

It is three pronged; cost, convenience and alternatives, or lack thereof.

Opinions are that while people are paying for tolls, the condition of the roads as well as it being horribly congested by traffic makes them not worth the price people are paying.

Secondly, due to heavy congestion and lacking alternative routes, some are forced to take tolled highways without a choice. This was the case in Cheras pre-2008, when finally the government decided to step in and abolish those.

Thirdly, though a less reported issue, is the poor design and lacking of maintenance on highways. I do believe that it wasn’t too long ago that a newspaper carried an article from the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) which said that certain spots in a highway were designed to be prone to accidents due to the giving up of land by local councils for development.

Seems an odd thing to do, but it was said.

With these in mind, we must note that the toll concessions agreements were to have raised their rates in 2013, but were refrained from doing so maybe due to the general election.

Similarly, the maintaining of the toll rates were also used as the excuse to not abolish the Batu Tiga toll, which leads traffic into the Federal Highway from Klang and Shah Alam earlier this year when the agreement was extended another two decades to 2035.

As such, it seems there are two ways to lower or maintain toll rates, then.

The first would be to do exactly what was done in the Batu Tiga case, which is to extend the concession agreements by decades in order to allow the companies to collect more profit from Malaysian drivers to enjoy the rush-hour traffic.

Or secondly, we move towards federalising the highways with the government or yet another new agency, taking over management of the highways and giving them a new revenue stream.

With the highways now even talking of full automation towards using just the Touch n Go cards, it is also cutting down dependence on Malaysians working for them. As such, jobs at the most menial level are being cut and people are quietly being pushed into buying the card without a choice.

And if you haven’t noticed, the highway concessionaire PLUS is a member of the UEM Group — which has a stake in Touch n Go. Thus, they’re making money out of you using the highways and the card.

Federalising the highways would help to avoid those and instead put the profits right into government coffers.

I am sure not everyone likes the idea of more money going to the government after the Goods And Services Tax (GST) went through, but this is the choice as it is.

Which would you prefer?

For myself, the buying out of all highways by the government is a double-edged sword because it means spending billions simply for the sake of those living in the Greater Klang Valley area, some in Johor and Penang.

It won’t benefit a lot of the 30 million plus Malaysians altogether, I can assure you of that.

It would be a question of numbers. Take the number of how many cars on the highways divided by the amount of money the concessions would cost the government.

Also, this will be in fact another government-sponsored subsidy expenditure. This basically means not only is the government lowering and maintaining toll rates for the drivers of Myvis, Protons, buses and taxis ferrying customers, but also the Ferrari, Hummer, BMW drivers and also the multiple outrider motorcades.

Also, let’s not forget this would also benefit the Singaporeans and Thais too.

This is basically what we should ask ourselves first, especially for the “I pay taxes” 5 to 6 per cent of the workforce crowd.

We must also consider the probability that the amount of money taken out for this expenditure will probably affect any future mass transportation spending, which would include Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems, buses, rolling stock for the trains and even future extensions of rail networks as well.

As always, I would ask the Malaysian public to decide.

It is always easy to be flippant about these issues without thinking of the adverse effects of such decisions on others. But since I believe we should make more informed decisions as a whole, well, consider this a humble submission of what we all need to consider.

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