The private sector is profitt-oriented and cannot guarantee that toll rates will be lowered or abolished altogether

pic by MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

ANY offers to take over PLUS Malaysia Bhd by private companies must include a caveat to abolish tolls as promised in the Pakatan Harapan election manifesto, said Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

Azmin, who sits on the Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s board, said the government has no intention to privatise the country’s largest highway operator as road usage should not be used to generate profit. PLUS is owned by Khazanah and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) with stakes of 51% and 49% respectively.

“Khazanah’s stand is clear. If you sell it (to a private company), can they guarantee that toll rates will be lowered or abolished altogether?

Of course not, because the private sector is profit-oriented, while our intention is not to make profit.

“The interest of Khazanah and EPF is to offer service for road users. So, (we will not sell it to the private sector) unless the company is willing to buy PLUS and eliminate tolls. Good luck to you,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby yesterday.

Last week, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said there have been no attractive offers made so far as the government continues to weigh all options on the sale of PLUS.

While the government is open to the possibility of selling the highway concessionaire to a private company, Dr Mahathir said the buyer must have the capacity to keep it on a profitable path given its RM30 billion debt.

“The government doesn’t like to be involved in business, so it is better for the private sector to be running the business. We hope they make profit, and we get 24% out of their profit, without any investment or risk.

“But sometimes, the offers from the private sector are not attractive, and do not give a promising prospect on PLUS, so we are still studying the proposals. We will study which is best, whether it is owned by the government or the private sector, we will choose,” Dr Mahathir said.

“It is a possibility (for it to be sold to a private company), yes. It has been done in the past. There are four offers or more, but we have not seen any attractive proposals,” he added.

PLUS has so far attracted four known bidders namely tycoon Tan Sri Halim Saad, construction company Widad Business Group Sdn Bhd, equity firm RRJ Capital and conglomerate Maju Holdings Bhd.

Separately, Azmin told the Dewan Rakyat earlier he is confident that Malaysia’s palm oil row with India will dissipate soon as both countries will exhaust all diplomatic channels to ensure that commodity will continue to be traded.

“Malaysia is confident that the palm oil row with India will dissipate soon as Indonesia’s palm oil supply alone will not be able to meet India’s demand. At the same time, the prime minister has also expressed interest to export more palm oil to countries he has visited recently such as Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan,” he said.