Dato’ Eric See-To
According to DAP, there is no hurry to build the Penang Undersea Tunnel itself as construction is only panned to start in the year 2023 and possibly complete in 2027.
Which leads us to the question why the Penang Govt has decided to award the Penang Tunnel project in 2013 – 10 years before construction starts?
It also leads to question why then would the Penang Gov allocate a fixed amount of land at today’s value to pay for something that is 10 or 14 years away?
Don’t the Penang Govt know that prime seaside land at Gurney drive will appreciate in value fast and by 10 to 14 years in future, the land could cost at least double what the price is now?
Would you accept it if the BN Govt awards some 100% private company a mega-billion project that only starts work in 10 years time but promises to pay you in a fixed piece of fast-appreciating prime land valued at today’s price?
And on top of allowing the private company to make construction profits, pay you with land that would be worth a lot more by then,they still pay allow you to collect 30 years toll to make more money even though you have already made a lot of money from the construction profits as well as the appreciation of that land.
That is exactly what the Penang govt has done.
Couldn’t the Penang Govt just award the 3 roads portion of the project now instead of also awarding the tunnel project when it is so far into the future?
However, if the Penang Govt had only awarded the 3 roads project by itself without the tunnel then the Penang Govt will have to explain why they need to pay RM220mil in reports for 20.3km of roads or a staggering 11% of the RM2 billion construction cost for the 3 roads.
They will have to explain why cost of reports alone for each km of road cost RM11mil.
All these would be hard for DAP to defend.
Source: Eric See-To
