Toll Rates to Go Up In December..

I wrote this post sometime in the middle of the year as a reminder that the will eventually be another toll hike for the 5 major highways. The rates were supposed to be hiked from March 1 2009 for the North-South Expressway (up 5%), Sprint/Kerinchi/Damansara Link Highway (30-50sen more), Ampang Elevated Highway (50 sen), Sg Besi Highway (up 10sen) and New Pantai Expressway (40 sen). Anyway, December has arrived and so far still no news. Let's hope it remains this way!

The gahmen said the increase was supposed to be January 2008 but was postponed and that they had been paying compensation to the toll companies since then.Then a few days after the Works Minster announced the hike months ago, the PM did a flip flop and said it would be deferred till Dec. Reason was plain for everyone to see... by elections coming up, the Perak crisis had further dented BN's reputation in the eyes of many.

There have been calls that the gahmen acquire all minority shareholders of PLUS with a generous offer of 15 per cent premium at RM3.30 per share, costing RM5.2 billion, therefore ensuring that minority shareholders are protected. Khazanah has a 65% stake in PLUS Expressway Bhd... DAP said the highway can be toll free by 2016... so let's see how high the gahmen will let the toll go..

And by the way, electricity tariff is due to go up in 2010. And it's already been sent to the Cabinet for 'discussion' again. Was supposed to go up in Aug 2008, but again, the timing seemed bad. So the gahmen went against their earlier plan to raise the tariff... a respite since the rakyat is feeling the pinch of economic downturn.

Let's see what the new year will bring for us, the common folks... sugar is already on its way up, so soon after the Sugar King disposed of his title and Syed Mokhtar's company took over. When sugar goes up, another round of food hike is definitely to be expected! Wonder how come once Sugar King title changed hands, price also goes up! 1Malaysia kena!