Lim Guan Eng lied about the cancellation of the ECRL
So, CCCC has got Guan Eng over a barrel. Pay the amount of divorce settlement being asked or else the divorce cannot be completed and you cannot go marry another wife. And the divorce settlement CCCC is asking for is not cheap, especially now that CCCC knows the reason for the divorce is because of ‘another woman’.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the decision to cancel the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project was made two days ago, on Thursday. As usual, that is one more lie of the many lies that Guan Eng is telling the nation. And now these lies are beginning to catch up on him.
The Cabinet decided to terminate the ECRL project a month after Pakatan Harapan came to power and not during its Thursday’s meeting, said The Star (READ THE NEWS BELOW). Hence Guan Eng had known for the last seven months that the ECRL project was off the table but pretended they are ‘still talking’.
Guan Eng tipu rakyat
Guan Eng did not want to reveal that the decision to cancel the project had been made seven months ago because they are still negotiating the amount of compensation the government would have to pay the China Communications and Construction Company (CCCC). Guan Eng was hoping the government could get it reduced to half the amount.
But CCCC already knew that the project was not actually cancelled, and that once the amount of compensation Malaysia would need to pay has been agreed, then the government would announce that the project is back on but will be given to another company — of course, not to CCCC again.
So CCCC knew the ECRL project was not cancelled. The government was just pretending it was cancelled to give an impression that CCCC might as well negotiate and agree on the amount of compensation to be paid since the project has been cancelled anyway.
The ECRL is not cancelled, just going to be transferred to another Pakatan Harapan crony-company
But then once the compensation has been agreed, the Malaysian government can announce the project is back on. As long as the negotiations for compensation has still not been finalised, the government is stuck and cannot announce that the ECRL is back on and has been given to someone else.
So, CCCC has got Guan Eng over a barrel. Pay the amount of divorce settlement being asked or else the divorce cannot be completed and you cannot go marry another wife. And the divorce settlement CCCC is asking for is not cheap, especially now that CCCC knows the reason for the divorce is because of ‘another woman’.
Guan Eng is hoping to soon announce that the ECRL is back on and will be given to another company at half the price. That is going to be another lie that Guan Eng is going to tell us. What Guan Eng is not going to reveal is that the CCCC price involves financing but the new ‘reduced price’ does not. Hence when you include finance cost the price is going to be higher.
Pakatan Harapan needs to make as much money as possible now in case they get kicked out in GE15
The other thing that Guan Eng is not going to tell us is that CCCC’s price is final and is the turnkey price. The new ‘reduced price’ is based on scaled down work and lower specifications, and once additions and changes are made, the variation orders are going to bring the price back up again.
This is an old trick they normally play to show that the price is lower than others. It is like buying a car without aircon, radio, power windows, leather seats, satnav, etc. It looks cheap compared to the other car, which has all that as ‘standard’. But once you add in all these ‘optional accessories’ the price becomes the same.
Hence once Guan Eng announces that the ECRL project is back on and has been awarded to another company at half the price, ask him to tell us how much the finance cost and variation orders are going to come to in the end. Then we will see if the new price is really half the price of CCCC’s price.
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The Pakatan government decided to axe the ECRL project in June, a month after taking power, and not on Thursday
(The Star) – The Cabinet decided to terminate the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project a month after Pakatan Harapan came into power and not during its Thursday’s meeting as reported by certain media.
Highly-placed government sources said during the meeting, the Finance Ministry had merely briefed the ministers on the issue.
“The decision to terminate was made earlier, not on Thursday. The Cabinet had a sort of briefing on the matter from the Finance Ministry,” said the sources.
The project comes under the purview of the Finance Ministry.
On Thursday, Sin Chew quoted a Cabinet source as saying that the Cabinet decided to scrap the project during its Thursday meeting.
According to the report, the Cabinet did not discuss the issue of compensation with China Communications and Construction Company (CCCC) – the project contractor.
The project was approved by the Barisan Nasional government in October 2016 while the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning agreement was signed with CCCC the following month.
The 688km project was expected to be completed in 2024 at a final cost of RM81bil.
The government sources added that the “decision to scrap” was made in June as the whole project was deemed too expensive for a government saddled with debts.
They further explained that the Cabinet also wanted to reduce the compensation to be paid to CCCC to half the amount.
“The compensation will be arbitrated,” added the sources, without stating who would handle the arbitration process.