This press statement is being released in response to statements made by Works Minister Fadillah Yusof yesterday.

Fadillah has been quoted as follows: “Will people be willing to invest in Selangor to make highways and make plans for public transport? It will be a dilemma for the private parties”.

Such statements logically imply that the Works Ministry places the interests of the private concessionaires above that of the people. Given that there are news reports where the Works Minister has already been accused of representing the interests of the concessionaire company, we as PJ residents have a right to know why or how this can be a criteria for consideration for an expressway project.

The works minister was also quoted as follows: “When these highways are not present, our efforts to enhance public transportation become difficult.”

We wish to point out that the Kidex highway was meant to be a privately funded, tolled, elevated expressway designed to offload paying private vehicles from the LDP, which was projected to have failed anyway. It was not designed to improve the flow of public transportation system. It would not have benefited the rakyat, rather profiting the concessionaire.

The minister also said: “When the current roads are already congested, it makes it difficult to mobilise public transportation”. While difficult, it is not impossible to mobilise public transport. Without proper studies to show a the cost comparison benefits of spending RM2.42 billion on a private elevated highway with a 48 year concession period compared to a cheaper public transport alternative, the minister’s argument is not based on quantifiable facts.

As such, we find it somewhat worrying that a federal minister continues to push such a dubious agenda forward despite the following facts as revealed by independent traffic consultants:

1. That this project received approval prior to any studies being done to justify the need for the highway. Nor is there is no National Highway Master Plan to plan all such projects.

2. That the Malaysian Highway Authority was not involved in the design or planning process.

3. That this was a closed tender, unsolicited proposal directly from the concessionaire.

4. That independent reports show that the Public Works Department (PWD) themselves have said this will not benefit the road system.

Despite being made aware of the above several times, the Works Ministry continued to favour the concessionaire with a full one-year extension on top of the one year period given to fulfil the condition precedents. This was despite the concessionaire fulfilling their stipulated condition precedents. He continues to do so. In doing so he represented the interests of the concessionaire by reneging on his promise to the people.

The fact remains that independent studies prove that Kidex does not bring tangible benefits to the people of the Greater Klang Valley. So why is the works minister bringing this issue up again?

We note also that following his meeting with the works minister, Selangor MB Azmin Ali was quoted as saying “I only conveyed the state government’s stand that we won’t budge from our earlier decision, (and) I informed him that the state government will formulate a master plan on the matter and it is to be shared with the federal government”. This report will take six months to complete.

We applaud the Selangor menteri besar’s non-partisan forward thinking initiatives and in improving public transportation efforts and suggest that the Works Ministry work in tandem with the Selangor government rather than against it.

For the record, Works Minister Fadillah has now publicly acknowledged that it is the state’s right to cancel the project: “We respect the decision to cancel (Kidex) made by the state government because it is their right”.

We at Say No To Kidex (SNTK) reiterate that we wholeheartedly support the need for the implementation of a world-class public transportation system and look forward to the state government’s traffic master plan report.