'Plus 1Q up three-fold at RM487.2m'. This was the headline reported in The Edge Financial Daily on May 17. Said the report: 'Announcing the results yesterday, Plus said it recognised the RM331.70 compensation for the closure of the Senai toll plaza under 1Q'.

I tried and tried but just could not work out how the closure can result in such a huge compensation.

Some background: The Senai toll plaza lies at Km 29 of the Johor Bahru to Air Hitam road, which is the trunk road serving southern Johor. A section of the road from Km 27 to Km 30 was steep and winding, resulting in frequent traffic jams.

In the 1960s, the Public Works Department widened a three kilometre section from two lanes to four lanes. A toll of 50 cents was imposed to recover the cost of construction, which at that time was probably about RM1 million to RM2 million.

In announcing the toll, the government promised that it would be lifted once the construction cost was fully recovered.

By 1980, this was achieved. DAP began campaigning for the lifting of the toll. Instead of keeping their promise, the government continued collecting toll and even raised the rate through the years.

Sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the Senai toll plaza was handed over to UEM/Plus, which at that time was given the concession for the construction of the North South Highway stretching from Johor Baru to Alor Star.

To justify the handover, UEM did some cosmetic changes to the road around the Senai toll plaza which could not have exceeded RM10 million. We can only be sure about the cost once we are able to look at the concession agreement. I believe this agreement has not yet been made available to the public.

UEM/Plus has been collecting toll at Senai for more than 10 years now. Whatever construction costs that they incurred would have been more than recovered by now. So I cannot understand how the government can compensate Plus for a sum of RM 331.20 million!

For comparison, that money could have built an 84 kilometre section of the north-south expressway from Seremban to Air Keroh.

We need Works Minister S Samy Vellu to explain.