It said the RM7 billion amount stated by PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli was not true.
In a statement today, MMC Gamuda said besides the RM21 billion construction cost, there were other associated costs — fees for engineering consultancy, quantity surveyors, system integration works, site investigations, topographical survey, overheads, contingencies and PDP fees.
It said the PDP fees were 6% for the elevated portions of the project construction works on condition that it delivered on time and within budget.
On the RM40 billion figure for all three MRT lines, the company said it was a concept proposal developed in 2010, based on prices in 2009.
“It did not include costs for electric trains and land acquisition.
“The current final alignments for the MRT 1 and MRT 2 are longer in terms of length and have more stations, which have increased the construction cost of the MRT project,” it said.
MMC Gamuda said the concept proposal was for all three lines to be constructed simultaneously while, currently, the construction of the three lines are being implemented in a staggered manner one line at a time, which would result in higher construction costs.
It said the MRT project was originally proposed in the concept proposal as a turnkey project.
However, the government had decided to appoint a PDP to implement it whereby MMC Gamuda was appointed, it said.
MMC Gamuda said as the PDP, it was tasked to manage the construction of the elevated portions of the project and all construction contracts were awarded based on open and competitive tenders.
It said as for the underground package, there was no PDP involved as MRT Corp Bhd has called for international tenders.
However, MMC Gamuda was chosen as the underground contractor based on best technical expertise and lowest tender price, it said.
“MRT Corp manages the underground works contractor,” it said.
It said that all processes that were carried out were subjected to two audits annually by Jabatan Audit Negara (auditor-general) as well as by an external independent global professional services firm.
As for construction cost per kilometre in urban rail, it varied between projects and cities according to research by international academics, it said.
“It is also a universally-accepted practice to use construction costs which exclude engineering design and supervision, land acquisition among others.
“For example, the land acquisition costs in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore (which are much higher) can distort the comparison of construction costs,” it said.
MMC Gamuda said among the reasons for the high variations in construction costs were differences in project characteristics, labour costs and degrees of emphasis on safety, health and environment.
Its analysis (in 2014) of the construction cost for MRT systems of 49 cities, in both developed and developing nations, showed that 38 cities had more expensive MRT systems than MRT 1, it said.
It said that with a fair and transparent open tender process, the construction cost was decided competitively by the market.
Moving forward, MMC Gamuda said it would continue to focus on completing the construction of MRT 1 (Phase 2) and MRT 2.