Saturday, May 17, 2008

What's the Petronas Link in Putrajaya?

I was flipping through yesterday's newspapers when I caught sight of a headline in The Star (16/5/08) 'Govt pays Putrajaya Holdings RM1bil a year for office space'. It's a 10-paragraph report on the PM's written reply to a question on the construction cost of the federal adminsitration capital in Putrajaya.

The PM revealed that it cost RM11.8bil to develop the government offices and staff quarters, the Putrajaya International Convention Centre, the PM's official residence and those for the DPM, other ministers and judges, as well as public infrastructure.

The build-lease-transfer contract was awarded Putrajaya Holdings, using its own private financing for the project. In return, the government leases the buildings for a 25-year concession period at a fixed monthly rate of RM2.50 per square foot. The buildings will then be transferred to the government at the end of the concession period. The company received RM929.7mil in 2007.

Fine. So far so good. Wrong!

DAP's Liew Chin Tong later revealed that Petronas has a 64.4% stake in the so-called private sector company, Putrajaya Holdings Sdn Bhd.

Well, that's very creative of the government in using the private sector to undertake mega-projects.

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