OutSyed The Box
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
ECRL - 2019 RM44B, 2021 RM50B, 2022 RM75B?? TRICIA YEOH OF IDEAS, PLEASE COMMENT
Here is more of the same every day. It's yet another shocker.
The ECRL will now cost RM75 billion.
KL (Dec 21): ECRL will proceed at RM74.96b
higher than the RM50.27b quoted by Wee Ka Siong in 2021
665-km ECRL to start ops Jan 27
Early 2022 Wee said progress 30% in May
Even under the corrupted Najib regime in 2016-2017, the ECRL kicked off at RM65.5 billion.
Then in 2019 under Dr Mahathir 2.0 it was renegotiated to RM44 billion by Tun Daim Zainuddin:
In April 2021 (last year) the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) wrote a detailed report about the ECRL. Here is a snapshot:
report covers development of ECRL project to April 2021
total cost of project changed several times
Najib announced in 2016 estimated cost RM55b
In 2017 cost increased to RM65.5b
2018 PH renegotiated, decreased cost to RM44b (by 2019)
in 2020, PN revised cost to RM50b
This evening I received a WhatsApp message about the ECRL from a friend who is in the transport industry. Here is what he sent me:
Politicians rot in hell or not, work on the ECRL has not only started but as of May 2022 it had already achieved 30% completion. "Early 2022 Wee Ka Siong said progress 30% in May" The ECRL project had already been signed at RM50 Billion in 2020 by the PN government. The RM75b mentioned today is a whopping 50% more than the RM50 Billion signed in 2020. How did the project balloon by RM25 billion in under TWO years? But the bigger question is why do you renegotiate a contract that has already been signed and work is already 30% complete? What is going on? Why have they "renegotiated" or "resigned" an already ongoing project (with 30% completed already) at a much, much higher price of RM75 BILLION? WHY? What is going on?
Can Tricia Yeoh (above) who is the CEO of IDEAS - venture an opinion? IDEAS wrote that ECRL report I have quoted above.
p.s. The latest news says a letter of intent has been issued to a local consortium to build a dedicated IPP for the ECRL project:
Citaglobal consortium, Reneuco received letter of intent for IPP for ECRL
50:50 JV with Reneuco accepted letter of intent on Wed
Citaglobal exec chairman, president, major shareholder Mohd Norza Zakaria
"We ..won this national contract via a competitive bidding exercise"
My comments :
Competitive bidding exercise for a letter of intent? Very interesting.
COMMENT :
amalik1959
look, let me clarify a bit - as the govt sometimes didn’t explain things clearly esp on a project as complicated as ECRL .. but I’ll try to make it simple here.. I ve been extensively involved in many projects of such nature and magnitude.. and I ve been fg ECRL .. and all I can say for now is that there are 2 great possibilities why the projected costs had ballooned over time although there could be more .. just for common sense sake from all the materials that was presented and the news, it would seem that 1) half the lines in the east coast area are on flooding plains (which tech people incl in govt didn’t anticipated or just kept quiet and left it open in the agreement for adjustments- deliberately or otherwise or both) and 2) which is what’s causing it to ballooned so high is that the new govt (in fact when even PH was ruling after GE14 had discussed) had included some hundred miles of line extension as a looping to the South from Klang thru some very high density populated area and going north easterly upwards through Gombak to join the original planned lines going to eastern corridor.. the cost is definitely high due to nec but expensive land acquisitions, the rolling stocks etc .. and that looping and extension is vital and nec to support the true viability and feasibility of the entire project.. otherwise it will fail as there will be less cargoes and passengers meaning less revenues to payback the entire costs.. in other words the project will definitely fail if the looping is not added.. in short it’s either you don’t do the entire project or do it by ensuring it’s eventual success .. but there’s no option to stop because the agreement already signed under Najib and moneys already paid with 30% work in progress.. I believed there’s no hanky panky intended to my mind.. Thanks
Very hurry to condemn the new gov😂
According to the Edge article the then FM LimGuan Eng said the total project would cost RM81b but the PN Govt made further changes so cost would probably be higher. So the 75 b tack is somewhat lower lah . Confusion due to what is included in the Total cost.