COMMENT The Singapore Land Transport Authority has now announced Singapore will match Johor's new higher Causeway tolls "in the next few weeks".

 

At the same time they published the following impact write-up on motorists using the Causeway to allow a few weeks for the public to digest and make enquiries.

 

Damn the Malaysian Works Ministry and the Foreign Ministry and all other ministries and departments for designing the absurd and totally illogical method of collecting toll to pay the toll concessionaire MRCB Lingkaran Selatan Sdn Bhd.    

 

And worse, they did not even pre-warn the motorists of its implementation with sufficient time to digest and make enquiries for a few weeks like Singapore LTA did.

 

Everything is so transparent and proper over the Causeway but it is a “black hole” on this side as no one knew the rationale of charging only those who drive in and out of the CIQ and who may not even use the Eastern Dispersal Link ( EDL).

 

After much huge uproar from all quarters, only then the explanation is coming forward bit by bit.

 

We are now being told that the new EDL was built to ease traffic jams from Kg Pandan to JB downtown and the new CIQ Complex.

 

But instead of awarding the contract to Plus which has been collecting the Causeway toll for years and has still not scrapped it after 1st August 2014, MRCB was given the concession to build and collect toll.

 

No major maintainence

We Johoreans have never witnessed any obvious major maintenance work done on the Causeway in the last 25-30 years since the toll was first collected.

Neither had we witnessed if Plus maintained the trunk roads from Skudai or Pandan to the JB CIQ.

 

 Hence, the toll collected by Plus would have been enough to build the EDL with the toll fee remaining at RM2.90.

 

What is the rational for Plus to still collect the RM2.90? What happened to the toll money collected by Plus at the CIQ complex all these years?

 

The rakyat deserve accountability from all the ministries and departments involved and the income and expenditure accounts must be declared for public scrutiny immediately.

 

Then without prior consultation, you all in authority designed the EDL toll collection system which in your mind is a good system.  

But not seeking feedback from all stakeholders, users and the public, has resulted in this tense and awkward situation.

 

Even the Singapore Land Transport Authority did not get formal clarification from you until now, based on their spokesperson’s response to press enquiries.

 

The Toll collection system for the EDL should have been built after the first exit outside the CIQ Complex, allowing motorists an alternative to use EDL or the old trunk roads by exiting to Stulang or Jalan Tebrau as any rational and logical minded person would.

 

Locals may still use the EDL for free as you intended, according to your design of a few exit points.

 

Hence, the blunder is to save a few dollars by piggy-backing on the existing Plus Causeway toll Touch and Go system.

Hence the separate EDL toll could have been wrongly viewed as a Causeway Toll by the Singapore Land Transport Authority, since no one from the Malaysian side cared to explain to them.

 

The mere fact that they have allowed a few weeks to implement the new Causeway toll is probably to allow time to be doubly sure of doing the right thing.

 

I would call this a design and planning blunder.

Please rectify this blunder by installing a toll collecting scanning system like that of SmartTag just after the first traffic light outside of the CIQ so that motorists entering or exiting the CIQ, have an option of not using the EDL and the locals may continue to use the EDL for free with the existing exit and entering points.

 

The new toll rate must also take into consideration the total Causeway toll collections by Plus and any surplus must be used to pay off MRCB towards the construction costs so that the revised toll rate may be fair and reasonable.

 

STEVEN CHOONG is the national deputy secretary-general of PKR.

Related stories

NGO urges protests over drastic CIQ toll hike

DAP: We oppose toll hike, not entry permit