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I refer to the malaysiakini reports Buying all five highways makes more sense and Seven failed privatised projects RM11b bailout .

Why should the government use public purse to compensate the highway operators and to bail out the companies behind the failed privatised projects? These companies must have won the rights to acquire the assets through a competitive transparent tendering process.

They must have done that with the assistance of a army of experienced professionals, a detailed and careful due diligence analysis of all known facts and figures before submitting their tenders.

Compensation issues only arise if the government - at the stage of the evaluation process - withheld critical material facts from the tenderer or if the facts and figures presented were blatantly wrong, misleading or exaggerated.

The public indeed has the right to know the truth. Too much public money has been squandered. Had all these companies been deceived by the government into buying these lemons? Had these companies been forced by the government to take over the projects? Or were these companies simply incompetent in running the complex operations?

Or had they overpaid in shutting out competitors? A royal commission should be set up to clear this mess to avoid it from ever happening again. Otherwise, public money should not be used to bail out these operators simply because of their incompetency in running the business.

What they should do is to cut their losses and sell out. A decade ago, the cash-rich American utility companies paid billions in buying a power generating plant from the Australian state government. Soon after, they lost hundred of millions of dollars in selling the plant simply because the returns generated by this investment failed to meet their initial optimistic expectations.

This is no different from Mr X taking over a noodle stall located in a busy shopping centre along Jalan Bukit Bintang from Mr Y. The business failed badly. Mr X, being a very good plumber by trade, neither had the expertise nor experience in running a noddle stall. Can he go to court demanding for Mr Y to financially compensate him for his loss?

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