Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai has been urged to be "more on the ball" after claiming that the government has received no proposal to raise passenger service charges for airports.

Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said that this is as Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd, which runs Malaysia’s airports, has already been widely reported to have made this proposal early this year.

Referring to Liow’s claim that this is as mere "speculation", Pua ( left ) advised Liow to brush up and inform Parliament if the ministry would approve the proposal to raise passenger service charges from 50 to 100 percent.

"Liow may be new to his job, having taken over the portfolio less than five months ago, but surely he should not be tardy in providing answers to reporters without perhaps first verifying the facts with his ministry officials."

Pua yesterday warned of an impending rise in airport and passenger fees given a huge 98.6 percent drop in MAHB’s profits due to KLIA2’s construction.

But Liow said there is no such proposal.

According to Pua, MAHB chief financial officer Faizal Mansor had said in an earlier report by The Malaysian Reserve on April 25 that “we have proposed an increase of RM3 to RM35 from the current RM32 for international passengers and RM6 to RM7 for domestic passengers at the LCCT."

He added that the MAHB management had confirmed that they are even revising the tax hike proposal further for the KLIA2 charges to be equivalent to that of KLIA, which are currently RM9 and RM65 for domestic and international passengers respectively.

Pua said that it was even more worrying that MAHB has expected the government to subsidise the additional charges and asked for the Transport Ministry to look into it.

“What is more worrying is the statement by Faizal Mansor in the same report that "if the government does not approve the new charges, the additional charges from the actual ones will be "subsidised" by the Government".

He said with the debts that MAHB is having, the government would be “under pressure” to bail out the operators by approving the hikes.

“We call upon Liow to answer as to whether the transport ministry will be forced to subsidise the airport operator even if it decides not approve the airport tax hikes by MAHB,” Pua said.