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Sakmongkol ak 47

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Thursday 19 December 2013

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.







20 comments:

the mean machine,  19 December 2013 at 09:16  

The main purpose of privatising the tolls was to enable the elites via their cronies to rob the people blind.It is like raping the people who voted them into power in the backside.

Balik kampong tanam jagong,  19 December 2013 at 09:40  

Dato,this is a good lesson for the voters.Keep on getting fooled by the elites time and again will teach them a lesson.Do not vote for the elites in the next GE,or else their mamas will smack them till their faces turned purple.Serves them right.

bruno,  19 December 2013 at 09:52  

With the toll increase,service tax and GST and whatever the elites can forced on the people.The people are getting hit by artificial inflation caused by the years of robbing the people's tax dollars high and dry.When the people's buying power has run dry then they will have learned their lessons,that it is time to chase out the elites known as Umnoputras and their political running dogs.

Anonymous,  19 December 2013 at 09:57  

Dato,

This trust fund is a worthy proposition.

But its implementation means the end of the source of umno (or more correctly warlords) source of incomes.

No chance for this to see the light, unless umno is replaced.

Then again, for that to happen, the heartlanders MUST be truly informed about this.

How?

This is better than the half-cooked proposal by that infamous RPK about PR state govt, using states fund to subsidise the proposed toll increments within their controlling states.

Hare brain?

More like trying to confuse the Joe M'sians who r confused & unable to think further than how to find alternative sources to increase income.

This is in contrast with how to reduce expenses to match income.

Afterall, their is just that much one can save & reduce, within the mountains of daily essentials.

Perhaps, this also explain why corruptions r so rampant within M'sia.

Deep within our psyche, WE never been taught how to live within our means. Spend the future money, via debts, to justify the current purulent living is the norm.

There is nothing wrong in finding alternative source of income to compensate the shortfalls in budget, the only problem is, within our culture due to years of tongkat bootstrapping, finding the easy way out is a prevalent mindset. An nothing beat that easy scheme of undertable money by those in power!

bumi-non-malay 19 December 2013 at 11:14  

Ubah corak hidup supaya dapat bayar semua Barang Naik dari UMNO-BN + persetujuaan Sultan-Agong.

Lepas Bersusah Ubah Corak Hidup pergi Surau, gereja, Kuil tempat sembayang dan mohon rahmat dari Allah..... In Rahmat dari Allah kepada manusia Malaysia yang enggan Bangkit...Bantah..>Raksaksa dan buat Tangkap serentak - Citizen Arrest semua ketua dan MB-Adun-MP UMNO-BN.....

setiap tahun UMNO-BN celaka masih berkuasa, awak akan hidup dengan satu lagi Barang Naik......yang UMNO melayu akan petik dari semua penjuru ekonomi negara!!

Manusia ada pilihan......Bangkit Bantah.....Hijrah ke Sabah-Sarawak dan PECAT Malaya....Biar UMNO-BN Syoik dengan hutang $1.1 Trillion Ringgit...Hutang Sabah-Sarawak $0....kosong.....ini harapan Malaysia!!...Pilih negara mana yang boleh maju lebih cepat!!

Sam,  19 December 2013 at 12:46  

"Gradual reduction of intra-city tolls" was one of the promises in BN's so called "aku janji" manifesto for GE13. All kinds of populist promises were made before elections to trick the gullible voters. Now that they have "won" as the minority government, they repay us by showing us their middle fingers. Vote for BN somemore lah !

Anonymous,  19 December 2013 at 13:35  

Plus has 30 yrs before concessions expires?....haha....are u joking Dato'? 3 years before 2038 they will extend it for another 30 years like they did to the current plus highway...remember that we are dealing with a bunch of greedy people...they are all intoxicated with money and wealth...do they care about the rakyat?....kick them out the next GE...that is the only way to make them learn.

the mean machine,  19 December 2013 at 13:36  

I thought trust funds are set up for our children and grandchildren.Stupid politicians with no brains,always thinking of their cronies and useless carpet baggers.

Suci Dalam Debu 19 December 2013 at 16:36  

He doesn't need to worry. He has plenty of time on his side. Six months before GE14, he will dole out $$$ and buys the kampong folks. Perkasa will stoke racial flames and promote Ketuanan Melayu.....Malay existence will be threatened by non-Malays, Christians out to convert Malays etc.

Melayu mudah lupa.

TDM is right about above.

Alias Dasuki 19 December 2013 at 17:12  

Datuk,
With the demise/departure of the real brains formerly held in the stature of Tun Ismail Ali and TS Khalid from its sevices, PNB perhaps is now devoid of people who can think like you. If PNB still fails to take up your challenge now that you have pronounced it, its management should resign en bloc. Your proposal is a sound way to expand what TS Khalid had kick-started in " merakyatkan ekonomi Selangor " on nation-wide scale, allowing every citizen to participate should the idea be translated into a UNIT TRUST scheme for everyone. Anyway, should they continue to be dumb, can't we initiate a move to get a Court ruling to force the Govt to establish a fund for the purpose ? ALIAS DASUKI.

Pok Li,  19 December 2013 at 18:00  

Your proposal is too complicated for the government to understand. They couldn't find the opportunity for their cronies to make money.

nick 20 December 2013 at 11:45  

Wait, wait ,wait Dato! Are you telling me that we could do that and it would be practical and even profitable for the toll companies and the rakyat as well? Why didn't someone think of that before giving the UMNO cronies the easy way of leeching off the people? Oh...it was UMNO's "the champion of the people" idea of giving lopsided toll concessionaire agreement to their friends and family i.e crony and make billions on people's misery.

And who gave UMNO the power and the opportunity to screw us for over half a century? Ahh.. the Malays who are all "pious" Muslim who believed that they will all go to heaven because they give UMNO the seat of government just because UMNO swears to them that they are pious too (who ever heard of a pious crook?) and above all they are the rightful and god appointed ruler of Malaysia.

And who are the ones that are now feeling the pain from UMNO's plundering and thieving? The Malays and the Malaysian who voted for UMNO and most unfortunately, those malays and the Malaysian who hate UMNO and didn't vote for UMNO in the last GE also shares the pain and suffering too. S#*@W you UMNO voters!

Then, who should we blame for bringing this disaster? If you don't already know the answer to that question then you are of course guilty of stupidly voting for thieves and pirates or in other words crooks!

How then can we go on living in this disaster area known as Malaysia? Well, going by the reasoning of our so called "genius" minister (Abdul wahid, Malek Hassan and those with the same IQ as Ahmad maslan) when confronted with the similar question such as "if the price of chicken is high then don't eat chicken or if we don't want to pay for toll then don't use the highway" then we don't have any other choice but to go and die somewhere preferably in a grave that we have dug ourselves and of course should be in our own plot of land and this is most IMPORTANT, definitely don't put your grave on gomen ground or properties because it would be such a hassle for those ministers to deal with the aftermath and of course then the properties would be devalued in price and when that happen it would earn those minister less revenue should they in some future time were to steal that properties and sold it to foreigners, which on all account would happen sooner or later.

In short, UMNO or in this case Najib's slogan for the new Malaysia is 1Malaysia, (because there's only one Malaysia) bury the people and long live UMNO and the cronies. "1Malaysia, rakyat dikebumikan dan Malaysia dikendurikan oleh UMNO dan 40,000 penyamun!

Nick.

Anonymous,  20 December 2013 at 12:00  

Tuan,

Surat Kabar hari ini....
Orang besar Suruhanjaya Letrik, Ahmad Fauzi kata, TNB untung RM4.6 billion, tapi ada belanjamodal campur infrastructure maintenance RM6 hingga 7 billion.

Apa maksudnya tuan?

Anonymous,  20 December 2013 at 15:39  

Dato',

I'm sure Najib knows what is best for the Rakyat AND what is best for him. Knowing him and Rosmah, he will choose the latter, anytime. Therefore, your toll proposal will remain just a proposal until, God willing, Pakatan takes Putrajaya.

Having worked with him before, it is not surprising that you have described him so accurately i.e. when there is trouble, he is the first person to "run away" until the coast is clear. Anyway, I do not even consider him at the level of a leader nor a follower. He is at the third level...an ostrich.

On your take on Najib being able to "do exciting things to mesmerise the masses", it is more like him having the "very rare" shameless ability to tell blatant lies to mesmerize not the masses, but the kampong folks, with the help from the highly dependent Utusan Tandas, who loves untruths. .

Now, it has come to a point that Najib doesn't want to be bothered about the Rakyat's welfare. It is now about trying to keep the country afloat in order to maintain the gravy train (at the expense of the Rakyat) and of course keeping power. The other things, important or not is not worth looking at.

Anonymous,  20 December 2013 at 17:33  


Political and business corruption had created very lucrative deals for politicians.

It's an excellent environment to make huge and quick profit at the great expense of real businesses and economy.

Anonymous,  20 December 2013 at 17:52  

Biar EPF,KWAP atau dana pencen lain yang rakyat jadi pencarum mengambil alih konsesi lebuhraya..sekurang-sekurangnya membiak juga wang pencen rakyat markaen...

Anonymous,  20 December 2013 at 21:45  

Dato'
Thais, Indons, Filipinos, Koreans would have revolted to banish leaders who lies, plunders and cheat.

Alias Dasuki 21 December 2013 at 11:18  


Nick,
Let's just admit it that there's no way the plunder would stop as the plunderers are too powerful and the UMNO members have become mere tools to them. Hence, my suggestion if Court action can be mooted and initiated in Public's interest

pesfreak 23 December 2013 at 16:30  

bukan ke PNB dah ada jadi shareholder dlm kampeni highway ni?(kampeni yg mana tak ingat plak)

Alias Dasuki 24 December 2013 at 11:59  


Pesfreak,
You may be right. Let PNB be, thru other Unit Trust schemes that it already managed. But, what Dato and are talking about is to buy over moneymaking concessionaires thru a specially set up Unit Trust specifically for the purpose. This allows every interested citizen to invest in the unit trust and at the same time earn dividends for the tolls that they pay.

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