The Malaysian Insight

PRIME Minister Najib Razak needs to come up with different ways to deal with air pollution, instead of by maintaining tolls and refusing to provide fuel subsidies, say Pakatan Harapan leaders.

PKR Women chief Zuraida Kamaruddin said the Umno president should not have trivialised Pakatan’s call to remove tolls and provide petrol subsidies. 

“I don’t see any connection between pollution and tolls. Najib was off the mark and made an illogical statement. We need to move forward towards the Smart City concept,” Zuraida told The Malaysian Insight.

“Such efforts include more efficient and cheaper public buses as well as better managed roads. Carry out a whole systems study, as is done in developed countries.” 

Najib had said that the Pakatan’s policy does not take into consideration the increased number of vehicles on the road should tolls be removed and petrol subsidies increased. 

“Not only do they (Pakatan) not know how to fund these policies, it will cause an increase in vehicles on the roads and the level of carbon dioxide in the air. We should be reducing our carbon footprint, not increasing it if we want this world to be saved,” Najib had said. 

Deputy Amanah president Salahudin Ayub said Najib was “dry” of ideas.

“He said taking away subsidies helps reduce pollution. I am shocked by his comment. I was thinking: ‘Which village head was saying all this?’”

“The prime minister should instead be thinking of how to encourage the use of green vehicles,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Selangor DAP publicity chief Ng Suee Lim said Najib’s statement proved that he does not care about issues affecting the people. 

“This was a rather twisted statement. The people have been hit hard with rising cost of living. And the Barisan Nasional government is friendly with toll concessionaires, hence the rising toll fees, extending their contracts and doing all this for three years straight,” Suee Lim said.

“Don’t use the environment as an excuse. To overcome pollution, there should be allocation of funds to Perodua and Proton to further study the use of green technology,” said the Sekinchan assemblyman. 

Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen said Pakatan maintained its goal of removing tolls should it come to power, and would do this by re-examining the terms and conditions of agreements between the government and toll concessionaires.

“The terms that are illogicial will be changed (by Pakatan). Some of the agreements are related to the bonds issue. Najib should review the concession agreements and resolve the problem together,” said Wong Chen.

In the 2018 Budget, the federal government proposed the abolishment of four tolls while the opposition’s shadow budget proposed the abolishment of all tolls. 

Pakatan also proposed that fuel subsidies be increased by RM1 billion. – December 5, 2017.