Stop claiming ignorance, Pua tells Najib

PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak has been asked to stop feigning ignorance over the inflated RM31.65 billion LRT3 cost.
Damansara MP and DAP National Publicity Secretary Tony Pua today said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng had announced that Prasarana Malaysia previously secured a government guarantee for a RM10 billion bond facility to fund the LRT3 project in 2015.
He said Prasarana on March 30 requested for an additional RM22 billion in government guarantee to ensure funding for the construction and completion of the LRT3 project.
"Lim announced that the final total cost of the LRT3 project had been reduced by 47% from RM31.65 billion to RM16.63 billion, saving a total of RM15.02 billion," he said.
Pua said on Tuesday Najib claimed that the project did not cost RM31.65 billion.
"No approval was given and their request was not accepted. Every time an agency requests for budget does not mean that the government will accept. In fact, we reject more requests than we accept," Najib told a news portal.
"No such approval was given. Period. No contracts worth RM15 billion or RM31 billion were signed. In fact, the letter seeking for the additional RM22 billion never even reached me and I was the finance minister then."
Pua said Najib cannot claim ignorance that the RM9 billion budget for LRT3 was merely for the construction cost of the LRT.
He added that it did not include among other things, land acquisition, PDP fees, other consultant fees, operational and overhead costs, as well as interest during construction.
He said in March, Prasarana had awarded RM15.2 billion worth of Work Package Contracts (WPC) for the construction of the LRT3 project.
He pointed out that each of these WPCs was approved by the Finance Ministry and Najib personally chaired the tender committee meetings.
Pua said Najib cannot now claim that "no contracts worth RM15 billion were signed".
"Najib's claim that he had "not approved" Prasarana's request for an additional RM22 billion allocation, does not mean that the overall cost did not run out of control.
"Lim did not say Najib had approved the request for an additional RM22 billion in government guarantees. All he said was the total cost of the project according to Prasarana themselves has increased to RM31.65 billion," Pua said.
He said the Harapan administration has no intention to hide the true cost of the project and the total cost of the project had been renegotiated down to RM16.63 billion.