Pemandu: Change being deliberated at Prasarana level

KUALA LUMPUR: The entry of a newcomer sought to oversee the Klang Valley mass rapid transit (MRT) may be a precedent for a change in the role or involvement of Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd.

“Prasarana is currently the owner of the assets and infrastructure (for the MRT project) though there will be some change to that,” said director of the Urban Public Transport NKRA (National Key Result Area), Ahmad Suhaili Idrus, at the Government Transformation Programme NKRA update by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu).

The nature of the change that would involve Prasarana was not disclosed, though he said it would be announced by month-end.

“It is subject to the government and Cabinet,” he said, adding that the role of the Gamuda-MMC consortium as the project delivery partner (PDP) will remain.

The Edge weekly first reported that Marcus Karakashian, a director of the Singapore Land Transport Authority, was brought in to oversee the MRT project.

His appointment came into effect this month.
Suhaili believes the change in Prasarana will not affect the cost or schedule of the MRT project.

News of Karakashian’s hiring has caused certain observers to speculate if further changes would be implemented at other levels of the project or involve any of the various stakeholders.

“He comes with very valuable skills and experience. He has worked on underground lines in London and Copenhagen before,” said Suhaili.

Karakashian is said to have spent more than a decade in Singapore, where he worked on the North East Line MRT and the Kallang Paya Lebar Expressway Road Tunnel.

Prior to that, he was construction manager of the Jubilee Line in London, in charge of the London Bridge and Southwark stations and tunnels.

Asked if the change in Prasarana would have any effect on the cost or schedule of the MRT project, Suhaili believed it would not.

In a Bloomberg News interview yesterday, Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar asserted that the project was on schedule, with the first tenders to be announced by November.

“Financing for the project will be announced by the government very soon. All the packages for the tenders are in place and will take off according to the time set,” Syed Hamid was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.

The initial cost was touted to be RM36.6 billion, though the final figure has yet to be finalised.

“We have done a lot of changes as we are responsive to public feedback and are looking at August or September to nail down the actual cost. The cost of the three lines that was quoted in 2009 could have ballooned up to a total of RM50 billion by now, considering the increase in construction raw material prices,” SPAD CEO Mohd Nur Kamal told the media last month.

The MRT is set to take off with land clearing works on the Sungai Buloh-Kajang line, spanning 51km of which 9.5km will be underground.

The Sungai Buloh-Kajang line will comprise 31 stations and the speculated RM20 billion for the route is believed to exclude the cost of acquiring trains and private land.

Plans for the high-speed rail connecting Greater KL and the Klang Valley to Singapore are still at its early stages.

“We have done pre-feasibility studies to allow the government to decide on corridors and key stations of the high-speed rail, though the information we have needs further refinement. Further feasibility studies will be done once we have approval,” said Suhaili.