He said the project is moving towards the stage where contracts will be awarded, making it too costly to scrap.

“Once you reverse (the decision), then the government would have to pay these contractors compensation,” Rafizi said, adding that Putrajaya also risked being sued if that happened.

The minister said projects can only be cancelled during the early stages, particularly before tenders are issued. He added that once tenders are awarded and contracts signed, cancelling a project becomes very difficult.

“By the end of this government’s term, contracts would have already been awarded. So I don’t think any government would reverse the decision,” he said during the 13th Malaysia Plan town hall session here.

Rafizi said the government was pushing to finalise the contracts quickly to make sure the project progresses without disruptions.

Using the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) as an example, he said he had opposed it when Pakatan Harapan was in the opposition due to its high cost of over RM70 billion.

However, once land was acquired and construction started, cancelling it became nearly impossible, he said.

“If we feel the terms of the contract do not benefit the government, we will try to renegotiate the cost.”

On Nov 11, transport minister Loke Siew Fook said the Penang LRT project would likely begin next year pending talks with contractors. He hoped that talks would end by the end of the year.

The LRT line would be fully funded by Putrajaya via MRT Corp and will run across the island in the first phase, followed by a cross-channel link to Butterworth in a subsequent phase.

The proposed 30km Mutiara line will be built through a “single-sourcing request for proposal” mechanism, a form of direct tendering where only one supplier is selected.

In this case, the federal government has announced that Gamuda Bhd’s subsidiary, SRS Consortium Sdn Bhd was selected.