The decision by the Selangor government not to renew a land acquisition gazette for over 3,700 properties for the proposed Kinrara-Damansara Expressway (Kidex) is a serious blow to the project’s viability and will send shudders down the spines of its potential investors.

If the Kidex project developers were having difficulty raising funds for the costly toll ‘skyway’ that has seen outspoken opposition by residents and politicians in Selangor their problems may have increased substantially this week.

What investor would want to put money into a project that had once secured permission to acquire the necessary land only to lose it again at the agreement of both the state and federal governments?

This development comes following numerous other problems and revelations about the toll skyway.

First, there was the PR disaster of the public briefing in May, that the Kidex chief executive officer had to ‘abort’ after public outcry, and after his communications chief referred to the people attending in obscene language on a ‘Facebook rant’.

Then there was revelations that the project would pass illegally within five metres of two schools, and seven metres of a mosque, threatening these and other sensitive places in Petaling Jaya. When the Kidex CEO sought to downplay these allegations, it turned out they were found in his own environmental study.

When the CEO made public claims that Kidex would bring “huge spillover economic benefits”, people responded saying the claims were undocumented and pointing out that his own environmental study said being near to the skyway can cause “drastic drop in property value, whether it is a residential or industrial unit”.

Shortly after, a group of national NGOs wrote to the federal government questioning altogether the Kidex environmental and social study and raising doubts about its assumptions, methods and conclusions and claiming it “may mislead decision-makers”.

If this wasn’t enough problems, the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) then got involved to point out that Kidex Sdn Bhd’s failure to get prior consent from the affected residents could “amount to a breach of human rights”.

Residents groups representing around 30,000 people then went on record to confirm they had not participated in the company’s studies and had not been informed about the project. Suhakam has legal power to subpoena the company and others supporting the project about human rights violations.

As well as offending residents, the project has caused controversy in two local councils. Local officials in Petaling Jaya characterised Kidex CEO’s claims that that all relevant reports have already been handed over to the local authorities as “a lie” and as “manifestly inaccurate and wholly untrue”.  

‘Leaping’ into local plans

Subang Jaya’s local council is currently being investigated by a Selangor select committee for irregularities regarding Kidex and another highway. How did these highways ‘leap’ into local plans they are asking?

At the state level, current and former Selangor exco members are recorded as stating that the project has not received final approval.  One current exco member has said that “there is nothing to approve” and she is “confident the project would not go ahead”.

Just this week one of the Kidex owners, Umno lawyer Hafarizam Harun, has tried to engage in Selangor politics by claiming Wan Azizah Wan ismail can’t replace Khalid Ibrahim because she’s a woman. He denies his intervention has anything to do with his financial interests in Kidex. The press has called his remarks “tasteless and misogynistic”. Do we want people like this building highways through our neighborhoods?

It has also emerged that Kidex Sdn Bhd in saying that we’ll see “up to 30 percent less traffic in Petaling Jaya” may not be true, and is inconsistent with their own preliminary traffic studies, that suggest traffic reduction in PJ could be as low as three or four percent by 2028. According to DAP politicians who read the report, it suggests Kidex would increase congestion by hundreds of percent on some roads.

What to make of all this?  The public and media are left asking whether it was based on these supposedly false claims that the project received “in principle” approval by Selangor and/or the federal government?

It can’t have been on the basis of completed studies, as the MB Khalid himself has said that the studies are not complete, and haven’t been received by the state. Nor has it been on the basis of independent studies, as so far the state hasn’t commissioned any.

If the company’s representations prove false could Kidex Sdn Bhd find itself subject of claims for “misleading and deceptive” advertising that is subject to fines and even jail sentences under Malaysian law?

If representations such as these found their way into investment prospectuses, or were made to investors, could the company also be liable for failure to disclose or false statements to investors, also subject to criminal and civil penalties under Malaysian law?

Has the company violated human rights laws that would make the company and its directors potentially vulnerable to subpoena by Suhakam?

For investors, Kidex is looking increasingly shaky as a home for their hard-earned funds. For its Umno-linked directors Kidex must be looking increasingly like a legal swamp into which they could sink for a decade. For the federal government, amid claims of cronyism, Kidex may look increasingly like a political liability in a state they have twice lost in the elections.

At a minimum, the failure by Kidex Sdn Bhd to secure land acquisition this week may be seen my many observers as yet another “nail in the coffin” of a project that seems less likely by the day to tower high above PJ, and ever more likely to be buried.

TERENCE SIEW is secretary of the Residents Association of Lorong Utara, Section 52, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.