I agree totally with Egghead with regards to the Plus toll hike - if the Barisan Nasional government through its own companies (UEM, Khazanah, EPF, Socso) control Plus then it is in the power of the government to review the agreement signed between it and Plus and reject the toll hike.

Why the government is not doing it to help out the rakyat indicates either one of two things - that it intentionally want to bleed the people to support its addiction to big spending, or two, the government is so hopelessly incapable that it cannot pass its money from its own left hand to the right!

In either case, it is not fit to be a government for the people.

As to the billions in compensation that the government would have to pay Plus if toll rates are not raised, it must be said that there are different implications from the government paying compensation to a government-owned company as compared to the public paying higher toll rates to the government-owned Plus.

In the first case, the government ends up with no more or no less to spend. In the latter case, the public is being squeezed to allow the government to keep up its spending craze, or make up for losses sustained during past spending crazes.

An argument used by some to support toll hikes is that compensation by the government victimises non-motorists because the money comes from all taxpayers instead of only from the highway motorists. But this argument is only true if Plus is not owned by the government.

When the government owns Plus, then compensation is only a matter of passing money from one hand of the government (Plus) to another (the government's consolidated fund). The money from all taxpayers with remain the government all the time, only changing from one pocket to another.

But when there is toll hike, more money is squeezed from the motorists and also from all others when transport companies pass on the higher transport costs to end consumers. The same aim is achieved when the toll collection contract for Plus is extended to 42 years instead of 30 - motorists are made to pay more, well beyond the actual cost of the highway.

The people - regardless of whether they are motorists - should stand up and fight this unjust toll hike. The government is overcharging the people by making them pay many times more than the highway cost.

In many countries, the cost of building highways can be recouped within 10 to 15 years. Any excess collection by the toll concessionaires is then returned to the government.

Plus' North-South Expressway toll collection began 1988 - it has been 16 years now. Why are we still being made to pay? Some serious omissions seems to have been made in the audit of Plus accounts. Why has the auditor-general missed this crucial account?