The government’s announcement that the Pan-Borneo Highway will be made toll-free shows that toll-free highways are possible.

It is only that Peninsular Malaysian voters are not important enough to get such toll-free highways, chided Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli.

“It means that you can build a highway without collecting toll.

“I don’t think Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak understands that when he announced the Pan-Borneo Highway would be toll-free, the rakyat would open their eyes, realise and understand that highways can be built in this country without toll collection.

“So statements before this - that the government needs private concessionaires to build highways - can no longer be used because the government itself announced it.

“If you can build the Pan-Borneo Highway - which is even longer than the North-South Expressway - free of tolls, then surely you can do that. Of course, if you (the government) wants.

“Unfortunately, I think, Najib doesn’t think that his peninsular votes are important enough, compared with the Borneo votes,” Rafizi told a forum in Kuala Lumpur on Pakatan Harapan’s alternative budget last night.

Pakatan Harapan’s predecessor, Pakatan Rakyat, had in its 2013 general election campaign, pledged to abolish toll highways in stages if it is elected into government.

In Najib’s budget speech last Friday, he announced that the 1,090km long Sarawak section of the Pan-Borneo Highway would be completed in 2021 at a cost of RM16.1 billion and it would be toll-free .

Work on the 706km long Sabah section of the highway, costing RM12.1 billion, would begin in 2016.

Works Minister Fadillah Yusof said the Pan Borneo Highway would be similar to a federal road in Peninsular Malaysia, where federal roads are toll-free.

The announcement came following a slew of toll rate hikes on Oct 12 on 18 highways, particularly those in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

Another speaker at the forum, Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming ( photo ), fumed that despite the toll rate hikes, the government would actually be paying more compensation to highway concessionaires under next year’s budget.

“What really made me angry when I saw Budget 2016 is that compensations to be paid to toll companies have also increased.

“In 2015, compensations to toll concessionaries amounted to RM458 million. For 2016, it goes up to more than RM500 million.

“In October, the toll rate had just gone up, ranging from 30 sen to RM1. My question is, why at a time where the toll rate has gone up, the compensations to be given to concessionaires are also to be increased?” Ong asked.

Together with the withdrawal of subsidies and the small increase in BR1M payments, the increase in toll compensation shows that the government favours ‘crony’ companies, which is unfair, he said.