Bridge over trouble water to Sumatra by Ali Rustam

Satu lagi project oleh kerajaan BN(Yet another project by the BN). I read with disbelief the news report that Malacca chief minister Mohd Ali Rustam is considering a proposal to build a bridge from Malacca to Sumatra with an estimated cost of the project is RM44 billion!

Dai @#$$$$*&@, even the second Penang bridge is not completed and there you are proposing for another being the "longest man-made link between two countries". Furthermore he mentioned that an alternative proposal to include an underground tunnel to accompany the bridge across the Straits of Malacca! What a brilliant idea.

His reasons for this proposal:

1) 15 per cent of the funding for the project will come internally ( wonder from where) while the rest from bank borrowings (wonder which bank have such an amount under the economical situation).
2) Malacca has a population of 800,000 and has 40,000 vehicles including buses and lorries entering the state daily ( entering from where Sumatra?).
3) Some 7.2 million tourists entered Malacca last year and furthermore he said in Sumatra, where the bridge is linked through Dumai, there are 70 million people and 10% are rich and they have money and can come to Malacca for health tourism."
4) With 15,000 vehicles a day at RM260 per vehicle works out to about RM4 million in toll collections per day. This means about RM1.5 billion in revenue a year.

Wow what mega money making project from the one time wanna be DPM!

Now lets use our brains for once and ask ourselves the following questions:

1) Why would the rich Sumatrans want to come to Malaysia for health tourism, even so they may not necessarily go to Malacca, KL and Penang have better health care in Malaysia.
2) Why do they want to use the bridge and pay RM 260 per vehicle being rich enables them to fly and more so with many budget airlines where not only the rich but also the ordinary Indonesians are flying ( just check the budget airlines, always full one!)
3) If they take a RM37 billion loan (85% of the estimated RM44 billion) obtained from banks with an interest rate is 5%, the interest expense alone will be RM1.85 billion annually.(Simple maths Revenue - Expenses - Interest rate: 1.5 billion revenue-1.8billion = 0.3Billion deficit) Hoi ingat bapak u akan bayar operating expenses kah!

Enough of satu lagi project oleh kerajaan BN ( another project by the BN government). Take the example of PKFZ with an initial extimates cost of RM2 billion which may eventually cost the country RM12.5 billion. The joke is that the new PM of 1Malaysia is supportive of the idea!I dont believe that these are the guys who are running the state and the country!Aiyo..karavuleh!