DAP parliamentarian Liew Chin Tong urged the government to renegotiate toll concessionaire contracts following an allocation of RM394 million in the Budget 2010 as compensation for not raising toll rates in 2008.

"It is listed as a 'one-off' payment allocated to the Works Ministry, though in actual fact it is by now a recurring item, draining taxpayers money," said Liew.

The Bukit Bendera MP said that the government had also paid RM180 million in 2009 and RM380 million in 2008 under the Works Ministry in compensation .

"It is crucial for the government to list the recipients of this huge amount of public funds and state why the budgeted amount for 2010 is more than double for 2009, from RM180 million to RM394 million, though it was RM380 million in 2008," asked Liew.

He advised the government to "rethink the approach towards toll concessionaires".

"While it was a populist move not to raise toll rates in 2008, the lopsided contracts between the government and the concessionaire mean that one way or the other, the public is still paying for such daylight robbery," said Liew at a press conference in Parliament.

Ending the nightmare

He added that it would lighten the fiscal pressure on the government, doing away with the necessity to impose the RM50 annual charge for credit cards.

plus highway sg besi 180205 aerial view 02 close up DAP has publicly articulated its proposal to dislist the North-South Highway (PLUS) from KLSE (Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange).

"We have estimated that by keeping the toll rate at the current level to finance the takeover, the highway will be a freeway seven years from the takeover day.

This will end the eternal nightmare of a 10 percent hike in toll rates once every three years, said Liew.

Meanwhile, Petaling Jaya Utara DAP parliamentarian Tony Pua asked the government to explain how it arrived at the "one-off" payment calculation.

According to Pua the accounts statements of PLUS revealed otherwise.

He said the from PLUS' annual financial accounts, the gross toll compensation for 2007 was RM697 million but the gross toll compensation for 2008 was RM731 million.

"So just PLUS alone they compensated RM731 million so where did this number come from?" he asked.