Former transport minister Anthony Loke claimed that the realignment proposal of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government was aimed to purposely exclude Pakatan Harapan-led Negeri Sembilan.
“Obviously, they (PN) want the project to skip the state which is governed by Pakatan Harapan,” said Loke when addressing the media in the state today.
In contrast, he stressed that the alignment Harapan proposed, which runs south into Negeri Sembilan from Pahang, was made with the advice of experts from China and was decided apolitically.
Loke, who is the Seremban MP, also stressed that the alignment was neither based on where his constituency is located nor which political parties were in power in the states.
“The alternative route was proposed by experts from China, we only know how the realignment looks like when they presented it to us,” said Loke, according to a voice recording released by his office.
He added he was satisfied that the China Communications Construction Company Ltd (CCCC) was willing to propose an alternative route to resume the suspended project at a lower price.
He said he hoped the PN government could maintain Harapan’s ERCL alignment as it was extensively planned after much research.
On July 5, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong revealed that the government had discussed a proposal by Pahang Menteri Besar Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail to revert the ECRL to the alignment first proposed by the BN administration.
Under the BN government’s proposed alignment, the ECRL will pass through Mentakab in Pahang, and then travel northwest to Bentong, before going southwest through the challenging Klang Gates Quartz Ridge and then on to Gombak in Selangor.
The Harapan government altered the alignment so that it wouldn’t go through Bentong and Gombak as initially planned, thus avoiding the need for a costly 17.8km tunnel through the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge.
Instead, Harapan’s proposed ECRL would run south to Kuala Klawang in Negeri Sembilan before entering Selangor. – Malaysiakini