Chow said he was astounded that Wee could estimate the undersea tunnel to cost about RM20 billion..
“According to the master agreement signed on Aug 2, the price tag for the project is RM6.341 billion, with the tunnel and three roads. The price remains the same from day one. We have never said the cost was otherwise.
“The payment in kind in the form of a 110ha land in Seri Tanjung Pinang also remains the same and is valued at RM1,300 per sq ft.
“And there will be a 30-year toll concession for the tunnel. If there is no tunnel, there will be no toll collection.
“This has been repeated from day one. Now, Wee says the tunnel alone is RM20 billion. I wonder what calculator he is using. Why is he plucking figures from the sky?
“Even the MACC, newspapers and other parties have accepted our explanation on this before, but our repeated explanations over this for the past years is still not good for Wee,” he said at a press conference in Komtar here today.
In a Facebook post yesterday, Wee asked: “Does the actual cost of the tunnel for the people really exceed RM20 billion as I calculated last year?”
Chow also explained why, in response to former prime minister Najib Razak’s criticism, the progress of the feasibility study for the undersea tunnel kept hovering between 90% and 98%,
He said the progress of the study could “roll back” every now and then when it was being inspected by independent checking engineers (ICE).
“It moves ahead and backwards as the ICE is looking through the study. We see that it went from 90% to 92% and then rolled back. This was because some parts of the study had to be checked.
“Now it is 98.5% and we expect it to be fully completed by the end of September. Najib is making remarks based on incorrect facts,” Chow said.
Najib had said: “In 2016 the feasibility study was 83% complete, yet in August 2019 it was 90%. Does it take that long to achieve an additional 7%? How thick is it (the study)? A million pages?”
The feasibility and detailed design (FSDD) study began in 2013 and was supposed to be completed in 30 months by April 2016, according to the state Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report.
The FSDD on the tunnel and three-roads project cost RM305 million and was paid through a 3.7-acre land at Seri Tanjung Pinang (near Straits Quay) to the construction company, Construction Zenith Consortium Sdn Bhd.
The cost of construction of the tunnel and the three roads are to be paid through rights to 110 acres (44.5ha) of land on Seri Tanjung Pinang 2, which is still being reclaimed.
The Penang government had said construction work on the undersea tunnel portion would begin in 2023. Work on the three roads, the government had said, would begin as soon as relevant approvals were given.
The tunnel will be built at least 20 metres below the seabed. The four-lane 7.2km-long tunnel is expected to be completed by 2026.
Meanwhile, to a question as to whether the state would consider an over-the-sea bridge instead of building the tunnel, Chow said it depended on how the feasibility study turned out.
Separately, he said work on one of the three roads under the undersea tunnel and roads project would begin “by mid or end of September”.
He said construction of the Air Itam to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway road had to begin by Oct 31, as the environmental regulators’ permission to do so would expire by then.
The three main roads (formerly three paired roads) will go from Air Itam to the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (5.7km); Tanjung Bungah to Teluk Bahang (10.53km); and Jalan Pangkor-Gurney Drive junction to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (4.1km).
The 7.2km undersea tunnel, meanwhile, will connect George Town’s Pangkor Road and Bagan Ajam in Butterworth.