7 August, KUALA LUMPUR – The cost saving and rationalisation of the Light Rail Transit 3 (LRT3) of up to almost 50 per cent has taken into consideration the win-win factor of all parties involved.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the cost saving by the government, however, did not affect the effectiveness of the project to the people and had met the standards set.
What is more crucial is to look at the original scope, it’s LRT but the station is like the MRT, why do we build LRT but want to make the station like MRT, what does that mean? Isn’t this a wastage that we do not need to be responsible for? he said during the Ministerial Query session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was replying to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (BN-Pasir Salak), who wanted to know whether this government measure could be considered as a cost saving given that many of the specifications of the project’s original scope had been reduced.
As cost saving measures, Lim said, among others, the 37-km LRT3 project would only involve the purchase of 22 three-coach sets compared to 42 six-coach sets previously and the project’s completion period has been extended from 2020 to 2024.
He described the project’s cost-saving, which is currently estimated at RM16.63 billion compared to RM31.65 billion previously, as a major achievement for the Pakatan Harapan government.
– BERNAMA