As his days as a cabinet minister are numbered, Works Minister Samy Vellu is adamant to create a history of his own. He has again spoken on behalf on the Plus highway concessionaire, on the expansion of the North-South Highway. Now, he wants the Rawang-Ipoh and Melaka-Seremban stretches to be expanded into a six-lane highway.

The justification to invest an additional RM1 billion is that those stretches are heavily congested during festive seasons. It must be a 'prudent' investment to cater for the congestions that occur during no other than Hari Raya Break and the Chinese New Year.

The minister estimates that an aggregate of 14 days (seven days for each celebration) will make the Plus highway a heavily congested one. This represents only 4 per cent out of the 365 days in a year.

If the additional investment of RM1 billion is put out solely to tackle the congestion of these 14 days, it would turn out to be a very costly investment. Let us assume the RM1 billion cost will be spread over a 10-year period, making it RM100 million per year.

That would mean the daily cost of investment is RM274,000 a day. Since the expected usage is only 14 days, it will be 351 days of normal days that do not really require those two extra lanes that Samy wants built. These s- called 'unproductive days' will cost RM96 million.

From a business perspective, the investment is not viable. Even kampung folks would be able to guess what would happen next. Samy Vellu, or his successor, would start talking about how much the government has to compensate the concessionaire for the revenue shortfall. It might also include the extension of the concession beyond 2020.

And finally, kampung folks and frequent travellers have no choice but to agree to the repeated toll hikesagain and again.