Reacting to a government announcement that a study on the project has been completed and awaiting submission to the Cabinet, transport planning consultant Rosli Azad Khan said the KL-Johor route was not economically wise and that Singapore’s exclusion would make the project unsustainable.

The line links Kuala Lumpur to Iskandar Puteri in Johor. The project replaces the earlier planned Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR project.

Rosli said the project required Malaysia to import all materials, “everything from rails to signalling systems, coaches and, even nuts and bolts”.

“All the capital expenditure will flow out to pay for the costs,” he told FMT.

“Therefore the country’s economy will not benefit from such a project.”

Earlier this year, former prime minister Najib Razak warned the government that it would eventually have to pay compensation to the HSR operator every year.

Najib noted that the cost of the new line was reported to be between RM63 billion and RM65 billion, which was not much different from the original RM60 billion to RM68 billion for the KL-Singapore HSR.

Without Singapore, Najib said, one could expect the number of passengers using the line to drop from a projected 8.4 million a year to just 4.2 million a year by 2031.

Rosli said the KL-Johor line would make other railway projects in Johor redundant and he made special mention of the Gemas-Johor Bahru electric double-tracking rail project, scheduled for completion by October 2022.

He asked: “What will happen to the KTMB double tracks between Gemas and JB? Are we building two competing railways?

“Who will benefit from the project and will there be enough passengers to fill the capacity of both railways, running almost parallel with each other?”