This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 14, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow has refuted claims that the cost of the state’s proposed Pan Island Link 1 (PIL 1) highway has further escalated to an exorbitantly priced figure of RM9 billion.

Chow said the assertion that “PIL 1 is the most expensive highway to be built in history” is invalid and made with ill intention.

Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in a Facebook post last week called for Putrajaya to scrap the project, claiming that it could save the government some RM9 billion, which would be more than enough to settle the Federal Land Development Authority’s RM8 billion debt.

In a statement yesterday, Chow said PIL 1’s cost as officially announced is RM7.5 billion.

“PIL 1 cannot be compared to other highways as each highway is dissimilar in many ways. It is for this reason that the per km cost of construction cannot be worked out on simple arithmetic as each highway has its own unique features which are needed to cater for the local conditions,” he said.

Chow added that other considerations in calculating the cost are the unique engineering approach incorporated in this proposed highway due to site conditions, technical requirements and minimising the social and environmental impacts.

“We would also like to assert that PIL 1 work packages will be awarded via open tenders for full transparency and equity.

“The funding is designed in such a way that no taxpayers’ money will be utilised to fund the project. Rather, it will be fully funded through Penang South Reclamation, which is owned by the Penang state government and not by any developer or contractor.

The 19.5km PIL 1, under the Penang Transport Master Plan, is mainly proposed to alleviate the heavy traffic load on the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway and adjacent arterials such as Pengkalan Weld, Jalan Masjid Negeri, Jalan Jelutong and Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah.