A Trust Fund for Tolled Highways

As though it matters that Najib’s popularity rating is down 10%. As usual, he will sit this episode out quietly as a church mouse. No statements or responses. They don’t matter anyway as long as he still heads the government. Accordingly there is no reason for the opposition to become euphoric; BN is still in power and Najib is the PM. He can still do exciting things to mesmerise the masses. That is better than hijacking NGOs’ street demonstrations.

Forget about his rating- the more important issue is the impending increase in TOL rates. I hear we have to pay RM2.50 for AKLEH, up by RM1. Sungai besi Besraya RM1.30 to RM2.00. Lebuhraya Baru Pantai (NPE) RM1.60 to RM2.00. Lebuhraya Damasara/Puchong (ldp) RM1.60 to RM2.10. Lebuhraya kl-Putrajaya (mex) rm2.50 to rm3.50. these are all tolls in the city.

Trust Fund on Highways.

Clearly the government has reneged on its promises not to raise toll rates. This government will do anything to raise money after spending frivolously.
Now is the chance to do a real transformation. This is how I plan to solve the toll issue. Buy out all the toll operators and place all the shares in a trust fund. PNB can manage this trust fund consisting of earnings from the business of toll operations. Issue shares to the public so that they can buy. At the end of the year, when dividends are declared that know they get money on something they spent. As they spend on tolls, they contribute to the earnings of the Toll Trust fund. If they want more dividends, THEY decide to raise the toll rates or not. But at least, they capture the increase in earnings rather than allow the selected few to capture the increase earnings.

Cost of Buy-outs.
How much will the government pay? Let the government valuation department do an assessment, without interference. At the same time engage a private valuation company for a second opinion. Then decide. Probably the toll concessionaires will be compensated for the all the costs that they incurred less the liabilities unsecured by assets. These must be borne by then.

The buyback cost on PLUS highways for example is estimated to be around RM15 billion. The purchase price will be secured by the stream of income from the increasing number of motorists anyway. And the land bank along the highways can be a major source of new revenue to defray the compensation costs.

What about future earnings? These must be discounted at a current interest rate. Pay the toll concessionaires in staggered form –they are getting income in future anyway. You are the government- you set the terms of payments. Maybe this is even an opportunity to discover what the actual cost of constructing the highways were and pay them accordingly. Maybe artificial costing can be deducted from the compensation price.

How will the maintenance of the highways be borne? The cost of highway maintenance if we see from the records is a miniscule amount compared to the revenue and can be easily met by the revenue earned from advertising. All along the PLUS highways for example are numerous billboards and advertising material that provide revenue for PLUS. PLUS has spent on average, RM200 million on highway maintenance. We don’t know whether these were done by open tenders or not but as commonly practised, the road maintenance companies may be owned by one of the directors. Let’s do open tender when the government takes over.

All the toll concessionaires are owned by GLCS which are effectively UMNO proxies. They are given monopolies over toll collection. The essence of a monopolist is that he gets to fix and set the prices he wants from the Public. Whatever happened to Najib’s promises in the BN Manifesto of GE13?-they will actually reduce the toll rates in the cities gradually. In the 2011 Budget, Najib actually stated that PLUS highway will not increase its toll rates for at least another 5 years.Let's see if UMNO really mendahulukan rakyat.

Compare for example the amount needed to buy out PLUS and the amount of money to be coughed out in compensation. PLUS received for example RM655 million, RM698 million and RM731 million for 2006, 2007 and 2008 in compensation respectively. PLUS has 30 more years before the concession expires. The government’s compensation amount over the next 30 years alone would exceed RM68 billion should the current toll rates be maintained. This is after taking into account the fact that PLUS is entitled to increase toll tariffs by 10% every three years. So the cost of buying out PLUS is much cheaper than having to stay the course.

This model of buying out tolled highways can be extended to natural monopolies such as electricity supply, water supply and so forth. It’s time to make more people become stakeholders in our economy.