Mahathir defends move to scrap KL-S'pore HSR

He says line too short, not much time saved compared with other transport modes

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad yesterday defended the move to scrap the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project, insisting that the line was too short and did not save much time compared to other modes of transport.

His comments came just over a week after Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob proposed reviving the rail project, which was scrapped by his predecessor Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

When asked if the proposal meant a revival of corruption politics, Tun Dr Mahathir responded: "It is."

He also claimed that Singapore had "demanded" to be compensated for work already completed in connection with the HSR.

"The high speed train is going to travel between Singapore and KL, it's a very short distance, not much time saved by high speed. You can also fly, you can drive," Dr Mahathir said during a virtual roundtable promoting his upcoming book, Capturing Hope: The Struggle Continues For A New Malaysia, to be launched on Sunday.

"When you want a high speed train, it should go a long distance, say, from Singapore to Penang, or to Alor Setar, or to the Thai border, but we could not afford that. And we don't need it at the moment.

"And when we wanted to terminate it, Singapore demanded to be compensated for the work they have done in Singapore."

Compensation, in the event the project was aborted, was stipulated in the legally binding agreement signed by both countries.

Dr Mahathir, who was prime minister of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government which came to power in 2018, was also in favour of ditching the project but eventually agreed to a two-year delay to allow for it to be reviewed. Dr Mahathir's PH government was subsequently ousted, replaced by one led by Mr Muhyiddin early last year.

Both Singapore and Malaysia eventually could not agree on the changes proposed by Kuala Lumpur and the HSR agreement was allowed to lapse last Dec 31.

In January, Singapore's then Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung told Parliament that Malaysia had to compensate the Republic in accordance with the HSR agreements, noting that Singapore had spent about $270 million on the project thus far.

Mr Ong said the compensation included abortive costs, such as for consultancy services, design of infrastructure and manpower to deliver the project. It would not cover land acquisition costs as the value of the land could be recovered.

In the end, Malaysia paid about $102 million as compensation to Singapore with a joint statement in March pointing out that both countries had reached an "amicable agreement" on the amount following a verification process by the Malaysian government.

Last week, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong disclosed that his Malaysian counterpart, Datuk Seri Ismail, had suggested reviving the HSR during a bilateral meeting in the city-state.

PM Lee said Singapore was open to fresh proposals from Malaysia on the project and that the transport ministries of both countries would discuss the matter.

The planned 350km HSR from downtown Kuala Lumpur to a terminal in Jurong East would have cut travel time to 90 minutes, compared with over four hours by car.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 08, 2021, with the headline Mahathir defends move to scrap KL-S'pore HSR. Subscribe