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PETALING JAYA: Transportation Minister Wee Ka Siong is blaming his own MCA colleague, Liow Tiong Lai, for what he claims is an overrated double rail project, says the man in the chair between the duo, Loke Siew Fook, from the government of PH.
Liow was Minister of Transport in the previous BN administration.
Loke said all he did as transportation minister was help lower the cost of the Klang Valley Double Tracking (Phase 2) or KVDT 2 project, as canceling it would have incurred more compensation costs and related costs.
The project spans 110 km and includes two KTM rail tracks, one from Salak South to Seremban and the other from a point between Kuala Lumpur Sentral and Angkasapuri to Port Klang.
Wee claimed yesterday that ministry-appointed consultant Opus’s findings that the actual cost of the project was RM3.398 million were never made available to the cabinet during Loke’s time.
Loke has challenged this, saying that he had informed Cabinet on September 19, 2018 that the estimated cost of the project could be reduced to around RM3 billion to RM3.5 billion if the project were to be re-tendered.
The ministry then recommended that the contract with Dhaya Maju LTAT Sdn Bhd be canceled and the project be put out to tender.
“The cabinet meeting that day decided to cancel the contract with Dhaya Maju. We can obtain confirmation on these facts through the minutes of the meeting of September 18, 2018, ”Loke said in a Facebook post.
He also clarified that Opus Consultants were not appointed by the ministry but had voluntarily submitted their report on the project to the ministry, adding that it was not a full and formal report and was only based on information in the public domain.
Loke said that on July 5, 2019, the Cabinet decided to continue with the project at a 15% lower cost taking into account the legal implications and the compensation that would result from the cancellation of the contract.
Demanding that Wee apologize for his “unfounded allegations,” Loke said the current MCA chairman should ask Liow, his predecessor as party chairman, why he did not get a third-party assessment before approving the contract with Dhaya Maju. .
“The summary is that the current MCA transport minister has canceled the KVDT 2 project approved by the former MCA transport minister because the latter agrees that the original cost approved by the former is too high.”
Wee announced yesterday that the ministry will reopen the project for bidding after it found that the project costs much less than previously agreed.
He said that the PH government had previously agreed that Dhaya Maju would continue the project with the cost reduced by 15% to RM4.475 billion from RM5.265 billion.
