News on Asas Serba’s proposal to take over 23 tolled highways has resurfaced once again. This time around, they denied planning to submit their proposal to the government and a few days later the Works Ministry stated that the government is open to the proposal.

Asas Serba first made news last year when they boldly proposed to consolidate all the tolled highways and will reduce the current toll rates by 20%. Some welcomed the news with open arms and urged the government to take the offer, while some are still feeling skeptical.

As a regular highway user, the offer is very much attractive but somehow I think there is something not quite right with the offer.

First of all, nobody knows exactly who is Asas Serba. While so many questions have been posed, none of them were answered. According to their company profile, it has six directors, one of whom is Ibrahim Bidin who seems to have experience in running a toll company. However, sources mention that Daim Zainuddin is backing the company.

The same one who is closely linked to the collapse of Renong and MAS. This would only mean one thing - another company doomed to be bailed out by the government.

Secondly, the company intends to finance the proposed RM50 billion takeover of all toll highways nationwide via the issuance of dividend bonds through a new concession company. But according to OSK Research, this can potentially cause ‘indigestion’ in the bond market. So if they do not have the resources to put this together, why would they be too ambitious? Does this mean they have political back up? Doesn’t this only mean it’s just another from of cronyism?

Third, while the offer that they have put on the table pretty is much irresistible, there seems to be a lack of strong business strategy. I could not help but wonder how they plan to sustain their business when there won’t be any increase in revenue while costs of operation would go up. Does this mean the government would still have to re-subsidise the operation? Is this another Renong fiasco in the making?

And of course there were many more questions raised but left unanswered. The way I see it, not only does Asas Serba’s proposal pose great risk of collapsing the toll industry, but the country’s economy as well. There have been so many questions put forward and yet none of them are being addressed. But what makes it worse is that the recent indication from the government that it is willing to consider the proposal - this proves that money plays a role in the deal.

Asas Serba should have done the right thing by approaching the stakeholders to sell their proposal. But instead, they opted for the easy way and asked for the government to decide. The government has performed poorly in delivering its promises. For the sake of the nation and fellow Malaysians, I do hope the government would do the right thing for once.