She told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday that the government was committed to its policy of gradually abolishing toll charges on all highways.
“The government is able to build highways without toll, but they are implemented in stages and, of course, it will take time according to the government’s financial capacity,” Rosnah was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Reserve.
Rosnah was replying to a question from Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali (PAS-Kuala Nerus) on construction costs for each highway and concessions which had matured.
Rosnah said the government had announced the toll-free Pan-Borneo Highway which connects Sabah and Sarawak, as well as the Central Spine Road passing from Pahang to Kelantan.
On concession agreements, she said: “The government has now made considerable improvements to the terms in the concession agreements.
“For one, the government created a state-of-the-art revenue-sharing clause with the concessionaires, and clauses that allow a concession agreement to be terminated once the company achieves its internal rate of return.”
According to TMR, Rosnah said the government’s constant evaluation of toll rate structures for all highways had resulted in the postponement of toll charge revisions.
On the amount paid to concessionaires, Rosnah said the government was still discussing the figure after ending collections from several highways nationwide.
“The finance minister will announce it when the time is right. On abolishing the tolls for other highways, once the concessionaires recovered their highway construction costs, we will do that after we consider every factor,” she was quoted as saying.
There are 31 highways with tolls in the country. These highways were constructed between 1988 and 2016, with construction costs ranging between RM45 million and RM5.9 billion each.
“The annual operating and maintenance costs (of these highways) in 2016 was between RM6.82 million and RM1.5 billion for each highway. This cost is borne by the concessionaire,” Rosnah said.
Toll collection from these highways in 2016, as given by the concession companies, was between RM2 million and RM2.87 billion.