Economic disruptions stemming from the ongoing disorders must be accounted for before wide ranging damage is done to the country's logistics sector.
There is already a shortage of truck drivers in the Klang Valley due to the China-built railway drawing these drivers for the project, potentially creating disruptions to the transport of various goods which in turn could lead to higher transport and logistics costs and a rise in the cost of living.
It has been reported that as many as 40 per cent of truck drivers have left their posts to join the construction of ECRL, raising concerns over a shortage of drivers in the Klang Valley and its adverse impact on local construction projects.
This shortage of drivers could undermine the logistics sector, leading to delays and disruptions in food and other consumer items.
Common sense dictates that any workforce shortages or disruptions will have a knock on effect on the cost of living.
While this would seem to be a temporary problem, the completion of the ECRL will in fact make the disruptions worse as a percentage of the trucking sector will lose out due to freight being taken over by the railway.
Some might argue that this will not happen as the cost of the ECRL for freight will be too high but if that is the case, then why did we commit to the ECRL in the first place? What will the benefits be?
It is either the truckers will be out of work or the ECRL freight service will be so high as to negate any benefit?It is clear that once the ECRL is complete, the truckers that used to ply that route from Port Klang to Kuantan Port and vice versa will no longer have that market share.
We could then expect the opposite problem which is an oversupply of truckers with the possibility that many will be laid off.
This will mean that not only will the ECRL fail to generate the promised jobs but instead will take away jobs.
There have been various estimates of how many jobs the ECRL will create for locals with estimates ranging from 23,000 to 80,000 but to date a lack of transparency clouds the issue of job creation.
Highly skilled jobs remain in the hands of China nationals while low end jobs are taken up by others including Bangladeshis.Seven years after construction, there is little progress in the way of job creation.
In fact there is a disturbing "wall of silence" over this issue. There is no readily available information that will clarify this, neither fromthe Human Resource Ministry nor the builders of the ECRL itself.
We should be against hyping up the spill over effect the ECRL will have as without solid economic plans, clear directions and targets, this will remain wishful thinking.
We cannot assume that by having a railway running through a limited part of the country there will be a positive spillover effect.
If the ECRL is not able to turn a profit it may instead turn into a financial blackhole with the government having to subsidise its operations and mandating that a certain amount of cargo must be transported via the ECRL.Lets not forget that ECRL is not the only rail line in Peninsula Malaysia. KTM has tracks running across the country from over 100 years ago.
At that time this was sufficient for some level of economic growth but what is the ECRL capable of doing that pre-existing rail infrastructure could not do without an investment into upgrading works and new trains?
*The writer is a senior consultant at Global Asia Consulting and has a background as a senior researcher at the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research. The viewpoints articulated are solely those of the author.