No wisdom in 38-year toll concession

QUESTION TIME | The wisdom of the decision to extend the Plus toll concession by a further 20 years is dubious, given the length of time it spans - now 38 years instead of 18 years. This is in return for an 18 percent reduction in toll and no further increases in toll charges up to expiry.

Given that many things can change over a period of 40 years, including whether cars, trucks and buses would even be a main mode of transport, such an arrangement, which must necessarily be made on current assumptions, could be fatally flawed in the future and produce adverse results for all parties.

But the eventual decision by the government to keep Plus with Khazanah Nasional (51 percent) and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) (49 percent) is the right one. This was in large part due to the top executives of the two bodies insisting they will do what is best for their organisations.

Leaving that aside for the time being before we come back to it later, let’s look at the toll extension and its implications and the reasons that the government came to this rather dubious arrangement, which implies a hazardous far away look at the future - no looking glass, however sophisticated, can do that...