Opposition parliamentarians continue to pressure the government’s commitment to the New Economic Model (NEM) as plans for four new tolled highways under Budget 2011 were unveiled.

DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua - seeing red over the award of the concessions to two firms - PLUS Expressways Bhd and Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) - said that the government should be aware of the “negative impacts” of the direct privatisation exercise.

Yesterday The Edge Financial Daily had reported that PLUS would be the concession operator of two of the roads, while PNB would run the other two.

NONE “Why weren’t these concessions tendered out? This piece of news comes as a surprise,” said Pua ( centre ).

“Firstly, the government’s economic transformation programme prioritises and focusses on public transportation. Secondly, there appears to be no indication at all that these projects are being tendered on an open and competitive basis as promised under the prime minister’s NEM,” he said.

Pua ( right ) quoted Premier Najib Abdul Razak’s past statement that the government should allow for competitive bidding for privatised assets and the latter’s advice against the ‘first-come, first-served’ basis.

“The then-deputy prime minister had admitted that ‘our experience has also shown that by providing exclusivity to one part... has the real potential to escalate the eventual costs and burden to consumers and the taxpayers’,” said Pua, reading out a line from Najib’s keynote address at the Jeddah Economic Forum in February 2007.

Failure of privatisation policy since 1980s

Pua added that the premier’s speech was an “open admission that the privatisation policy since the 1980s” has been a failure.

“The question is, while Najib eloquently critiqued our privatisation policies to date to a group of international investors, has he or will he be practicing what he preachers in the NEM?” he asked.

“We fear that the government has chosen not to exercise its duties in a responsible manner to the rakyat especially when the government had told the rakyat that we need to tighten our belts and absorb the planned subsidy cuts to help the government reduce its budget deficits,” he said.

It is understood that PLUS will be the operators of the highways from Sungai Dua to Juru in Penang, and from Kinrara to Damansara in the Klang Valley, while the PNB-operated highways are said to be from Ampang to Cheras, and from Damansara to Sungai Buloh.

Pua also urged the prime minister to come clean and explain in his upcoming Budget 2011 speech whether open tenders will the cornerstone of his administration.

“But more importantly (explain) all the mega projects being awarded under the guise of public finance initiatives (PFIs) or public-private partnership (PPP),” said Pua.