The 40-day-old Abdullah Ahmad Badawi leadership scored two firsts when the cabinet decided on Dec 10 to shelve the controversial double tracking electrified railway project.

It was the new leadership's first act to break free from the shackles of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's autocracy. It was also the first display of revival of collective leadership when the new cabinet was reported to have engaged in a heated debate where the majority of cabinet members expressed strong feelings against the present execution of this project.

The phenomenon of "expressing strong feelings" and "heated debate" in a cabinet meeting was something unheard of during Mahathir's 22-year reign, where all cabinet decisions were claimed to have been arrived at with "unanimity" or "consensus", for which the former premier insisted that the cabinet took "collective responsibilities".

That Mahathir did not practice collective leadership and that his cabinet was always submissive to his will was amply demonstrated in a recent example when he bulldozed his way to force the launching of the infamous Johor "crooked half bridge" a mega project that defies all logic and good sense, turning Malaysia into a laughing stock.

Despite the obvious insanity of such a project, the cabinet remained completely silent.

In fact, so ingrained was Mahathir's domination over the cabinet members that even well after he stepped down on Nov 1 this year, the cabinet continues to be fearful of crossing him.

This is evident as no one to date has dared to disclose the issuer of the mysterious letter of award for the construction of the double tracking railway contract to Mahathir's close friend Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary's Malaysian Mining Corp (MMC) consortium only days before the former's retirement.

Treading carefully

While the award of this contract continued to mire in controversy and uncertainty due to the bizarre and most improper circumstances under which the award was made, the nation was kept in suspense as to how new premier Abdullah would resolve this mess.

It was therefore with welcome relief that we received the news of this project being shelved based on the correct analysis of its prohibitive costs and low priority. Equally encouraging is news that the Abdullah leadership has made the positive policy decision of shifting priority to health, education and agriculture, while making efforts to balance the budget.

While the new cabinet ought to be congratulated for finally picking up enough courage to rescind one of Mahathir's mega projects, we discern cautious timidity in the polite language chosen by the cabinet to explain this event, presumably for fear of riling the former autocrat and his supporters.

The project was "good" but had to be temporarily "postponed", and the recipient of the letter of award, the MMC-Gamuda consortium, will still be the first choice when the project "resumes". In fact, Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy went so far as to declare that there was no need to revoke the letter of award as the project was not cancelled.

While we sympathise with the cabinet for its decision to tread gently and cautiously on its first attempt to defy its former boss, the fundamental facts of the present controversy must be boldly exerted and laid out to avoid confusing the people.

First, this project is a hopelessly unviable venture economically and financially, and should not have been launched in the first place.

Second, the clandestine and dubious manner with which this project was awarded was most deplorable, and in fact fraught with criminal implications.

Manner of award

We start with the second aspect. The award of this project ought to be condemned on the following counts:

1) There was no cabinet participation when the project was awarded. This is evident from the fact that the "strong feeling" to defer the project came about after active discussion of its "technical, funding, implementation and other aspects" (quoting Chan Kong Choy) in the Dec 10 cabinet meeting, during which further financial and technical inputs came from the Ministries of Finance and Transport respectively to enable the cabinet to make the final decision in the next weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday Dec 17.

These moves implied that meaningful details, as well as the pros and cons of this project were never properly discussed in the former Mahathir cabinet, not to mention a formal cabinet endorsement and approval. Awarding the biggest single project ever undertaken by the country without cabinet participation is an unthinkable affront to our system of parliamentary democracy.

2) The recipient of the award, MMC-Gamuda, had been asked to submit a "detailed plan on the technical aspects on the RM14.5 billion high-speed electrified rail project" (quoting Chan Kong Choy in the Malay Mail, Dec 12), implying that such technical details did not accompany the consortium's tender offer.

It is an unimaginable oversight bordering on criminal negligence to award such a huge and important contract without proper technical details, as it will expose the government to endless disputes and fraudulent claims, apart from the possibility of rendering the contract legally void.

3) It is professionally unethical, diplomatically offensive and economically dangerous to abruptly brush aside the letters of intent and years of investigative and designing works put in by Ircon International and China Railway Engineering and Telecommunications Centre (Cret), the state-owned railway corporations of India and China respectively, under a government-to-government agreement to implement this project by them on a barter trade basis.

The Malaysian government's decision to cut them out without giving them adequate advance notice and reasonable time to respond is totally inexcusable and inexplicable.

That brings us to a series of big questions: Why did the government behave in such atrocious fashion? Who made the final decision? When was the decision made? Who issued the letter of award?

Though many Malaysians already know the main answers, deducting from the timing of this abrupt award and the identity of the recipient, none of the local news media dares to mention the name of the culprit, and this speaks volume of the state of self-censorship that still exists as one of the hallmarks of the Mahathir rule.

It is therefore not surprising that the task of candid reporting was left to a foreign newspaper, the Asian Wall Street Journal, which reported on Nov 14, and again on Dec 11, that it was Mahathir who directed the Transport Ministry on Oct 22 to award the project to Syed Mokhtar's (left) MMC-led consortium. These reports have stood uncorrected and unchallenged to date.

If this AWSJ report is correct, then it readily explains the mystery of the Star's report on Oct 23 that the letter of award was received by MMC-Gamuda in the night of Oct 2l. It is now clear that the letter was not delivered on Oct 21 night (night delivery of government mail was not creditable anyway), but on the following day, Oct 22.

Interestingly, this is also the same day that Ircon and Cret were rumoured to have submitted their counter offer, as well as the day in which MMC-Gamuda gave its press conference to announce the award. Imagine all the climatic moves on the nation's biggest project taking place in lightning speed in just one day: Ircon-Cret's counter offer, Mahathir decided on the award, Finance Ministry issued the letter, MMC-Gamuda announced its success. Such super efficiency is a feat that deserves a place in the books of records.

On a more sombre note, these events reflect grave improprieties and utmost irresponsibility with criminal implications on the part of the retiring leader, who must now stand up to clarify his role in the entire episode.

Unviable project

On the project's viability, it must first be realised that the trans-Asia railway is more an ideal than reality, as the proposed route is strewn with long gaps without any railway, not to mention the double tracking high speed electrified rail that Malaysia has partially constructed.

There is no schedule to close those gaps with even a single line in the foreseeable future. So we should stop using the grand 'trans-Asian line' idea to hoodwink the public into supporting the rush completion of our trans-peninsular double tracking line. Our feasibility study must be based on consideration of services rendered within Peninsular Malaysia.

Could the proposed double tracking be viable? The answer is emphatically no. Based on current estimate of total project costs of RM 25 billion (which includes those for the central sector from Seremban to Ipoh currently under construction as well as for land compensation), annual financing cost (or opportunity cost) alone is in the vicinity of RM2 billion.

What is the present total gross revenue of the Malaysian government-owned railway KTM? A paltry RM 0.4 billion per year. Even assuming the gross revenue is doubled or tripled or even quadrupled after double tracking, the expanded gross revenue would still be insufficient to cover the financing cost, not to mention the hefty operating costs and depreciation of assets. It is therefore clear that this project, if implemented, would incur massive losses, with no hope of breaking even in the future.

There is a simple explanation why an expensive railway project in this country is not an attractive proposition, and the reason is geographical. Unlike China or continental Europe which have vast hinterlands inaccessible by ships, Peninsular Malaysia is a small and elongated peninsular, well

served by sea ports at strategic locations (Penang, Klang, Johor Bahru, Singapore) and traversed with efficient highways.

These factors have ensured that goods are transported efficiently and economically by trucks or by ships. There is not much room for the rail company to butt in for the transportation of goods. For land transportation, trucks are often preferred to trains due to mostly short hauling distances and the necessity to double-handle if trains are used. As for competition against ships, sea freight per unit distance is always cheaper than land transportation rate.

This is not to say that a much faster train service cannot contribute to improved transportation of goods and people. It certainly can, but is the improved facility worth the huge capital layout, recurring heavy subsidies the state must provide to keep the services going?

Conversely, will the people suffer significant handicap if the fast train project is not pursued, considering our peculiar geography and the fact that we are already well served with efficient land and sea transportation?

Most importantly, wouldn't the redeployment of this huge amount of money on the uplifting of skills, expansion of agriculture and improvement of social services be contributing immensely more effectively to betterment of quality of life of our people?