Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s announcement that Cabinet would not impose any toll hikes for 2014, is an opportunistic political tactic clearly intended to please voters for BN in the Kajang by-election on 23 March 2014. BN federal government has only changed the music but not the words by freezing highway toll hikes for one year by paying RM 400 million in compensation to highway concessionaires.
Despite promising in its 2013 general election manifesto to reduce intra-city toll rates, the BN Federal government sounded out to the public that several tolls are due for a hike this year. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar has even said that those who disagreed with the toll hikes can use “alternative”, non-tolled roads instead when there are no such alternative roads for some routes.
BN is clearly only changing with the music but not the words, when the highway concessionaires do not lose out and can still profit with the RM400 million compensaton from the Federal government.This is no solution when the RM 400 million compensation will ultimately be borne and paid by the rakyat. Why should the few toll concessionaires benefit at the expense of 28 million ordinary Malaysians?
This short-term solution is only for this year as toll hikes will have to be imposed for next year in 2015 unless the BN Federal government freezes toll hikes by paying out another RM400 million. This tactical move for the Kajang by-election shows that BN has completely forgotten how to govern and is merely approaching its rule day by day based not on any principles of public interest but solely on political expediency.
Real reforms of the unfair highway toll contracts will only be carried out when there is no need to use public monies to pay compensation by the Federal government when toll hikes are deferred or abolished. After all, some of the highway toll operators(the Penang Bridge operator have collected more than RM2 billion with costs of RM1.3 billion) have already benefited and recouped their original capital investments, what they are getting now are clean profits.