Toll concession extended to compensate 'traffic leakage'
The government has extended the Kajang-Cheras toll concession to highway operator Grand Saga Sdn Bhd for another three years, in return for allowing a slip road to be opened for Bandar Mahkota Cheras residents to bypass the toll.
The government has extended the Kajang-Cheras toll concession to highway operator Grand Saga Sdn Bhd for another three years, in return for allowing a slip road to be opened for Bandar Mahkota Cheras residents to bypass the toll.
"On the issue of traffic leakage in Bandar Mahkota Cheras. As a solution, the government had agreed, after discussions with the toll concessionaire to, among others, grant them a three-year extension to their concession, that is from 2028 to 2030," states the written reply to Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai.
In his answer, Works Minister Shaziman Mansur explains that this is in addition to the initial 30-year concession for the privatised highway project, which was supposed to end in 2025, and the two-year extension given from 2026 and 2027 to compensate for the toll rate restructuring in 2002.
"This is something that you never knew about, we never knew about, no one knew about until this answer we got today," Tan said when distributing copies of the written answer to reporters in the Parliament lobby today.
Highway was built on existing trunk road
Tan said that this "stealthy move" of the government would burden thousands of people living in the 100 or so residential areas that straddle the expressway in the Serdang and Hulu Langat parliamentary districts.
The highway is not a new throughfare but was built on the old trunk road connecting the areas, Tan pointed out.
This literally forced the residents there to use the toll road as there is no other access road available to them.
In his answer, Shaziman also said the toll rate for the Cheras-Kajang highway was due for another revision in 2013.
However, he said, the government was looking into ways of reducing the burden of the toll-paying rakyat in Cheras and Kajang.
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