‘Episode 1 of the Penang Undersea Tunnel scandal’ was disclosed today when State Gerakan Youth wing acting chief Jason Loo questioned the actual cost of the project's feasibility studies and detailed design.

Loo claimed that the feasibility study and detailed design for the undersea tunnel and three highways cost only RM90 million (US$22 million) and not RM305 million as claimed by the Penang government.

The RM90 million amount, he said, was revealed on the Chinese language website of China Railway Construction Group, one of the partners of Consortium Zenith-BUCG (CZBUCG), the firm awarded the contract to build the tunnel and three paired roads.

The firm revealed the amount when signing the agreement for the project with CZBUCG in October 2013, Loo (photo) said.

“What happened to the balance of RM215 million?” he asked at a press conference at Gerakan’s headquarters on Jalan Macalister in George Town today.

“Did anyone siphon off the money?”

According to CZBUCG, the sum of RM305 million granted by the state government is not only for the feasibility study and the detailed design works for the undersea tunnel, but also for the three major highways, bypasses and connected infrastructure works.

Linking Gurney Drive on the island with Bagan Ajam on the mainland, the tunnel and three highways are expected to cost RM6.34 billion. The tunnel is slated for completion in 2027.

But the project has been strongly criticised, especially by NGOs that are concerned with the environmental impacts of an undersea tunnel.

Loo said the source of the information - the China firm’s website - should be reliable as it is the firm's official site, and the company is a partner of CZBUCG.

“It is as official as the Penang government’s newsletter Buletin Mutiara, which is read by 1.6 million Penangites. They deem the sources or information there to be reliable,” he said.

He urged Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and the Penang state executive councillor in charge of public works, utility and transportation, Lim Hock Seng, to answer his questions on the matter.

“No wonder Hock Seng tried to escape answering these questions! No wonder he is a coward and does not dare attend a debate with me on this issue!

“No wonder, too, that he refused to meet me when I went to see him at his office in Komtar, when he was there waiting for an Umno minister (to show him documents on the undersea tunnel),” Loo added.