Toll rates
Jan 27th, 2007 by Tian
Samy, please answer
Samy Vellu alleged that secret document has been stolen from his office. I think he meant the Agreement of the LDP Highway. It is a serious thing to lose a secret document. I would like to ask when did Samy discover anything missing from his office. Has he made a police report of missing documents?
The following is a page from the LDP Agreement which states the rates of toll untill the end of the concession period. There is no room for negotiation. The government has committed to pay up the following rates.
The concessionaire has been provided with guaranteed profit. For example this year, the government has decided that RM1.60 will be collected from each car and another RM0.50 from taxpayers. If the government wants to pretend to be benevolent, the toll rate could be fixed at RM1.20. In that case, the government must subsidize RM0.90 per car.
In other words, even with a lower toll rate, the taxpayers still end up losers.
On top of that, traffic volume is not taken into account. Public subsidy to the toll company does not reduce according to the increased volume of passing vehicles. That means the more cars using the tolled road, the more the government has to pay to the company.
Anybody can see the terms and conditions in this contract is grossly unfair to the people and the government. Samy Vellu must tell the people who drafted the contract? Who approved the contract? And who signed the contract? To me, these are the greatest secrets in this case. Now he is trying to burry these secrets under OSA.
