BARISAN NASIONAL should not use taxpayer-funded mega projects for its political capital, PKR said.

“The government should not announce taxpayer-funded mega projects as if it was part of a political manifesto,” said PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar in a statement today.

Her comments come after Prime Minister Najib Razak launched the second phase of the Sungai Buloh-Kajang MRT line today.

“How nice would it be if the prime minister expressed the same concern when commuters are stuck on the LRT line (because of disrupted service), or when the concessionaire increases fares because of spiralling maintenance costs.”

In the interest of transparency, she also urged government-linked transport firms MRTCorp and Prasarana to publish monthly progress reports on the project.

Nurul Izzah also repeated her party’s call for bipartisan parliamentary committee on public transport to be formed in order to scrutinise the progress of the MRT project.

She questioned if the cost of the project was still according to the original working paper, and if the government had put in place measures to prevent taxpayers from being burdened by cost overruns.

At the MRT launch today, Najib said the line had been completed two weeks ahead of schedule, and RM2 billion below the projected cost of RM23 billion. – July 17, 2017.