THE Pakatan Harapan government should undertake management buyouts of toll concessionaires and make roads and highways free to benefit the people, instead of using them as tools for profiteering, said PKR MP Wong Chen in a Bernama report.

Bernama reported the Subang lawmaker as saying that this, combined with the revision of tolls to be announced early next week, would further lighten the rakyat’s financial burden over the long run.

He said the MBOs could be undertaken in the next one or two years, once the new government had consolidated its financial position.

“Whether we can afford to buy all these tolls up and make them free is an issue of fiscal prudence and what the economic priority should be,” he said.

Wong said with the revision on toll rates, consumers should be paying less, which he said was “at least a start” in lessening the rakyat’s burden.

Wong also proposed that the government undertake MBOs of government-linked companies which had been criticised for competing with private sector firms.

He said GLC managers should then ensure that the companies chalk up better profits to be channelled back to the federal government to pare down national debt and help the people.

This, he said, would create a big class of owner-managers and level the playing field for all other private sector companies.

On whether there was a dire need to break up monopolies or cartels in certain sectors and allow for healthy competition, Wong said they could be deregulated and ensure they were not making excessively obscene profits.

“I think the approach is whether they are making too much money at the expense of the consumers,” he added.

Wong said that licensing could be eased through deregulation to enable greater competition, such as in the telecommunications sector.

He also said it was best that politicians did not hold positions in GLCs, and that these companies should be detached from the direct influence of the government.

Wong said that monopolies were a common feature of the Malaysian business landscape, where companies linked to political parties were actually cartels in areas such as concessionaires running tolled highways and telecommunications. – May 20, 2018.