BFM: The Business Radio Station

The government’s decision to award Kumpulan Europlus the concession to build and operate the Banting-Taiping highway is said to be lopsided and overly favours Europlus. The concession stretches to 60 years but the government, essentially taxpayers, will be bearing the land acquisition costs and providing soft loans for more than 20 years. Transparency International Malaysia president Datuk Paul Low says the concession lacks transparency, as the terms and conditions were not made public. "The figures that are coming out here seem to be way above the norm. Maybe there is some explanation to it, but obviously the government needs to explain to the public how it was awarded," he tells BFM in a recent interview. 

Given that the concession has been under consideration since four years ago, Low says the public are wondering why there was a delay, why the hike in costs and why the doubling of the the concession period. "The government has to prove its jusfitification to public. They have to be accountable for the decision. Many have been questioning the economics of it, how the government benefits and what is the rate of return to the concessionaire."

He says that while everyone knows the West Coast Expressway is necessary to relieve the heavy traffic in the North-South Expressway, "the issue is how much sum is involved in this". 

"Malaysia in the past has been known for poor productivity in capital expenditure... we spend more than we get in return for our infrastructure projects, so I think we need to be careful on that," he says.