KINIBIZ A costly elevated highway snaking through some of Petaling Jaya’s most densely populated areas could hurt Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim’s popularity with the electorate and worsen his already distant ties with Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers.

The Kinrara-Damansara Expressway or Kidex for short is a 14.9 kilometre fully-elevated highway project estimated to cost RM2.2 billion (some estimates cite RM2.4 billion). For its length, Kidex is the country’s most expensive highway yet at RM148 million per kilometre to construct.

For comparison purposes, the 7.7 kilometre fully-elevated Ampang-Kuala Lumpur Elevated Highway (Akleh) completed in 2001 cost RM98 million per kilometre to construct. Kidex costs 50 percent more per km. Both Akleh and the future Kidex are two-lane dual carriageways.

A more recent project, the partly elevated and much wider Duta-Ulu Klang Expressway (DUKE) cost even less to construct at just RM65 million per kilometre. Kidex costs 2.3 times that.

The highway concession holder is Kidex Sdn Bhd. Its two shareholders are Emrail Sdn Bhd with a 70 percent stake and Zabima Engineering Construction Sdn Bhd with the remaining 30 percent.

Emrail has been linked to former Chief Justice Zaki Azmi through his wife’s directorship. Umno legal adviser Mohd Hafarizam Harun is a director in both Emrail and Zabima Engineering.

When Kidex was awarded the contract in early-2012, Pakatan Rakyat leaders claimed the concession agreement was a ‘reward’ to Zaki and Hafarizam for their work during the Perak constitutional crisis of 2009, which began with three Pakatan Rakyat state assemblypersons defecting to Barisan National.

Both Zaki and Hafarizam have denied such allegations. In an interview yesterday with radio station BFM, Kidex CEO Mohd Nor Idrus said he was certain there was more than one bidder for the highway concession. “I believe we won by merit,” he claimed.

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