Freeze in toll hikes: PH matching Umno/BN antics

The government will incur close to a billion ringgit in freezing toll hikes on highways nationwide. And I refer to the news reports suggesting the government was granting us a favour.

TK Chua, Free Malaysia Today

Here are my questions:

First, did we vote for PH to expect only a freeze in toll hikes?

Second, did we expect the government to compensate the toll operators when toll rates are frozen?

Third, did we not vote for PH to abolish/reduce tolls and not just freeze toll hikes?

I think the PH government is matching the antics of Umno and BN when it comes to hoodwinking the people.

Maybe Malaysians are reasonable enough not to expect complete removal of tolls on our highways even though it was promised earlier.

But then what about renegotiation to reduce the toll rates? May we know the status of all the renegotiations now? Have we even begun renegotiation, or is it going to be next quarter, next year, next five years or in 10, 20 years?

What happened to all the overpricing and cost padding arguments put forward in the past? If toll concessionaires are doing “risk-free” business, I am sure the rate of returns can be adjusted downward.

To me, freeze in toll hikes is not enough. We expect the PH government to reduce the toll rates in line with promises made.

In fact, what is the point of freezing the toll hike when the government has to compensate the toll concessionaires using money from the consolidated fund?

Is this not asking non-toll road users to subsidise toll road users? Is this not asking Malaysians to continue supporting the extraordinary profits of highway concessionaires?

When more money is used for compensation, less will be available for other purposes. I thought we hammered Umno/BN for umpteen times on this. Hence, what exactly is PH trying to do now? It looks like nothing has changed. PH is doing exactly what BN was doing.

T K Chua is an FMT reader.