Its deputy director Eric See-To said this was because their ideas were often unrealistic and populist, without taking into consideration the wider implications.
Zeroing in on PH’s proposal to remove all tolls in their alternative budget for 2018, he said, “But if the you read through their entire alternative budget as I have, you will find that ‘abolishing toll’ is just one paragraph (on page 40) in their entire 100-plus page budget.”
“Nowhere does it say how much this will cost or how they will fund it.
“In fact, it is not even an item in the financial figures of their budget,” he said in a statement today.
See-To said Finance Minister II Johari Abdul Ghani recently cited in Parliament a government study in 2010, which showed that abolishing all tolls would cost RM338 billion, while just taking over all related concessions would cost RM45.2 billion.
“What this means is that it will cost RM45.2 billion to buy all the toll companies, but will require another RM292.8 billion to pay back their outstanding borrowings as well as the compensation allowed in their concession agreements,” See-To said.
He added that if the government were to break a signed agreement, all other agreements it had signed would have little value as well.
“Our financial markets will be in turmoil and investors will desert us,” he said.
He said the companies that dealt with Putrajaya, as well as the bonds signed by the government, would suffer mark-downs in the market.
“Pakatan will never tell or educate the public about what I have just told you,” he said.
“All Pakatan ever does is make populist statements that are really just based on their zombienomics policies which do not take into account the wider implications,” he claimed.
Yesterday, See-To criticised a call by DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua for the government to allow Express Rail Link Sdn Bhd (ERL) to raise its fares for train services to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) instead of “bailing it out” with a 30-year extension of its concession period.
He said the idea by Pua, who is DAP publicity secretary, did not fully take into account the consequences of such an action.
He said the government owed ERL RM2.9 billion in outstanding compensation, which would have to be paid immediately if the concession agreement was not extended.
“The government may have decided that paying this amount now is not in the best interests of the people,” he had said.
See-To also said the ERL had RM2.8 billion in liabilities, with much of its bonds and loans owing to Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH) and banks.
He added that as TH had a 40% stake in the ERL, it could incur billions of ringgit in losses.