KUALA LUMPUR: Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has questioned the government’s claim that the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project would be a waste of public funds.
While clapping back at his successor and former mentor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he said “poor” people in the East Coast deserve proper public transport system.
“Yes, there may not be many people who would use the ECRL and most of its passengers are “poor” and do not do big business like at the West Coast railway so the government may not make large returns as Pakatan Harapam claims.
“(But) this is only a probability, not an actuality. These “poor people” and the East Coast also deserve a modern, safe and fast public transport system. They too deserve to be given a chance to develop and enjoy the rapid economic growth,” he said on his Facebook account here today.
Najib said while PH had stressed that the project was not profitable, it had yet to reveal the feasibility studies that the former Umno president has called for time and again. It has remained unanswered.
“Apart from cargo and ticket sales, what is the economic spillover which would contribute to the Gross Domestic Product and what will be the revenue from transport oriented development in areas around stations at the respective states,” added Najib.
Najib also said he was not convinced that Putrajaya lacked the financial capacity to proceed with the project.
“But if they could ‘rob’ Petronas of RM82 billion for this year and next year, definitely they could afford to pay ECRL, priced at RM55 billion or RM81 billion,” he claimed while pointing out the discrepancy in the figures quoted.
“The cash reserve of Petronas had reached RM170 billion prior to the 14th general election,” he added.
Petronas is slated to fork out RM30 billion in special dividends in 2019 in addition to the annual dividend paid to the government. It will be utilised to fully settle the outstanding tax refunds estimated at RM37 billion — RM18 billion in income tax and RM19 billion in goods and services tax.
Najib argued that if the government was willing to lose at least RM25 billion tax revenue annually by reverting to the sales and service tax (SST), then it could afford the ECRL.
“The cost of ECRL is definitely easier to repay in three or four years merely from the shortfall of (moving from) GST to SST,” he said.
In an earlier interview with a Chinese daily, Dr Mahathir deemed the project a waste of money as it would incur RM55 billion in debts and the government could not get any returns from the project as there was no way for it to tax the concessionaire.
He drew on the West Coast railway line which he claimed the government gained no profit from despite its heavy use and argued that along the ECRL alignment, there were “fewer people and the people are mostly poor - not doing big business like the people along the West Coast railway line - so you cannot get your investment back”.