In a statement yesterday, Fadillah said he had in several statements over the past year reminded the concession company that the total feasibility and design fees for the project that cost RM305 million was excessive, including in his statement issued on March 30.
According to Fadillah, the briefing given by the Penang State Government to the ministry in April was a project overview including an explanation on why the feasibility studies on the tunnel portion of the project long-promised to the ministry, had been delayed.
“The detailed cost of the projects was not part of this discussion,” he said as the company, Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd, was reported to have dismissed suggestions that it overpaid the consultancy fee for the project which cost RM305 million,” he said.
Consortium Zenith Construction’s chairman Zarul Ahmad Zulkifli also claimed that there were no adverse statements, remarks or comments raised by the minister, Works Department and the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) on the issue when they made a ‘full-fledged’ presentation on the feasibility study and detailed design (FSDD) and environment impact assessment (EIA) to the ministry in April.
Elaborating, Fadillah said the ministry stood by the professional opinion of the Board of Engineers that calculated the maximum allowable fees based on the scale of rates to be RM41 million for the three main roads portion of the Penang project.
“The RM177.5 million fee already paid by the Penang State Government for this is more than four times the maximum fee as per the gazetted scale of rates.
“Please note that this RM177.5 million in fees does not include any fee for the actual tunnel itself as the studies for this has yet to be completed nor has it been paid for,” Fadillah said.
The minister stressed for avoidance of doubt, that the Board of Engineers was the sole statutory board that governed the gazetted scale of fees for civil works in the country. This was provided for under the Registration of Engineers Act 1967 (Act 138).
The construction of the undersea tunnel is part of the DAP-led Penang government’s Transport Master Plan to solve traffic congestion on the island.