“The project was not cancelled by Malaysia because of Covid-19 as announced by PN,” he said in a Facebook posting today.

He said Singapore’s transport minister had told the republic’s parliament that Malaysia had not wanted the contractors and systems supplier appointed through open tenders. The tenders were to be jointly evaluated and monitored by the two governments.

He added that the Singapore government also did not agree with PN’s proposal to have the HSR end at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

He added Malaysia had proposed that passengers switch to an Express Rail Link train owned by YTL Corporation to continue their journey to Kuala Lumpur on trains running at half the speed of the HSR.

“Because the Singapore government did not agree with these two main changes proposed by the PN government, Malaysia cancelled the contract and would be paying compensation of at least RM320 million to RM1 billion,” he said.

As a result, he said PN had then decided to extend the ERL to Johor Bahru as a medium-speed rail project, which would cost nearly as much as the cancelled HSR KL-Singapore contract.

He added that the government had also agreed to pay annual compensation to the ERL operator for their expected losses due to a lower number of passengers now that the train project would not be reaching Singapore.

Earlier it was reported that Malaysia’s proposal to remove the systems supplier and network operator of the HSR project, was the main sticking point that led to the collapse of the HSR deal with Singapore.

According to the Straits Times, Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said they could not accept this “fundamental departure” from the original bilateral agreement.