Senai Desaru Expressway (SDE) chief executive officer Mustaza Salim has played down account in the Auditor-General’s Report stating that its highway in Johor had some 823 instances of uneven or bumpy surfaces.

NONE While acknowledging the problem , Mustaza said there are only a few such problems left as the company was constantly carrying out maintenance works, he said in a Sinar Harian report today.

“These maintenance works will never end, when we complete maintenance work in one area, problems will crop up at another area,” he was quoted as saying.

He added that the problems mostly occurred outside the main road, such as near drains or slopes.

According to the Auditor-General’s Report 2010 on the Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA), some stretches of the highway were built at a depth of 72mm rather than the mandated depth of 95mm.

NONE Explaning the highway’s three-year completion delay, Mustaza told the Malay daily that the construction was hampered by floods, sand shortage and the global price of steel that skyrocketed four-fold.

He added that this was further aggravated by land acquisition costs which ballooned from an estimated RM365 million in 2003 to an actual value of RM740.6 million in 2005.

“At that time, the Department of Valuation and Property Services (JPPH) had valued the land but the prices increased because houses were built in an area that was previously a jungle,” he was quoted as saying.

As a result, he said, the government had to pay more because the market price had risen due to the development, reports the daily.

The Auditor-General’s Report said that due to the delays, the government has lost 20 percent of the revenue due from toll collection and commended that the concessionaire be fined.

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