Damansara Utama assemblyperson Yeo Bee Yin has questioned the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) over its public display on the East Coast Rail Link project (ECRL).

Yeo said that a key portion of the project, to link Gombak and Port Klang, is missing from the public display that has been put up at the commission’s headquarters.

Instead, Spad’s maps show the ECRL running from Wakaf Bharu in Kelantan to Gombak. Yeo said only 16.7 kilometres from the Titiwangsa range to Gombak is visible on the Selangor portion of the map, compared to the at least 60 kilometres that are supposedly missing.

She said she had queried the Spad personnel present on the matter, and was told that the Gombak-Port Klang portion would be in the second phase of the project.

“This is very strange. The proponents of this project have always sung highly of the potential of ECRL to connect ports on the east and west coasts of Peninsular Malaysia, i.e. Kuantan and Port Klang.

“They said that this could alter regional trade route with the new link to enable exporters to bypass Singapore to reach to their respective destinations.

A major bridge for trade

“In fact, The Straits Times quoted Malaysian government planners as saying that ‘the priority will be placed on the construction of the 250-kilometre section that will connect Kuantan with Port Klang. When completed, the ECRL would become a major land bridge for trade in and out of Asia’.

“If the Kuantan-Port Klang connection is important, why is it that the Gombak-Port Klang route not in the public display?” Yeo asked in a statement today.

She said the Selangor government and people should be better informed of the project, as it could see the acquisition of some 1,000 plots of land once the track’s alignment has been finalised and have huge economic and social consequences.

Hence, Spad should explain its plans regarding the ECRL in Selangor.

She questioned whether the exclusion of the Gombak-Port Klang portion of the rail line is an attempt to exclude the Selangor government from the decision-making process.

Yeo demanded that the federal government discloses all studies regarding the ECRL, including feasibility studies conducted by HSS Integrated Sdn Bhd.

She also demanded the disclosure of the framework financing agreement and engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract signed in Beijing on Nov 1 last year, as well as the estimated ridership and ticket prices, and cargo fees needed to make the RM55 billion project economically viable.

HSS Integrated Sdn Bhd completed a feasibility study of the ECRL project in December 2015, and disclosed in its corporate profile and capability statement that the proposed 545-kilometre ECRL route that it studied would cost RM29 billion, or approximately RM53.2 million per kilometre.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, had previously said that there had been three feasibility studies on ECRL since 2007, when the project was first mooted.

The initial cost estimates, he said, had varied between RM30 billion and RM70 billion.