PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli has challenged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to sue him if he was wrong about the cost for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project.

"I challenge Najib to sue me in court within seven days if it is true that the total cost of the 150km MRT project does not exceed RM100 billion.

"If he does not file the lawsuit within seven days from today, I want him to apologise to the rakyat for his confusing statement that (the MRT project) successfully saved RM2 billion," Rafizi said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Najib announced last Thursday, during the at the launch of the first phase of the MRT between Sungai Buloh and Semantan, that the MRT project costs RM21 billion, compared with the targeted cost of RM23 billion in the initial stage.

Rafizi had claimed on Saturday that this announcement confirmed his earlier fears that the cost of the whole MRT project would exceed RM100 billion.

MRT Corp did respond to Rafizi's claims, saying that the RM21 billion stated by the prime minister was the cost for the both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the 51km Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) Line.

'MRT Corp did not respond to main point'

However, Rafizi said today MRT Corp did not actually respond to the main point of his claim, that the total cost of the entire MRT project would be upwards of RM100 billion.

"Their response is that I was wrong (about the RM21 billion being for 21km of MRT). Fair enough.

(But) they very cleverly just talked about Phase 1 and Phase 2 of MRT1, which is the Sungai Buloh-Semantan-Kajang line for 50km.

"MRT2 consists of Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya, for another 50km and MRT3 consists of a full underground Circle Line for another 50km.

"So they have not confirmed, or even commented (on that)," Rafizi said.

Previous news reports, he said, were that the MRT2 line would cost RM32 billion and MRT3 would cost at least RM50 billion, as announced by MRT Corp strategic communications director Najmuddin Abdullah.

This shows that the total cost for the entire MRT project would exceed RM100 billion, once the costs for the three lines were added together, Rafizi said.

The RM2 billion saved, as announced by Najib, might be true, he conceded.

But it does not portray the full picture, that is the total cost of RM100 billion for the entire MRT project, he added.