By Wong Shu Qi, State Assemblywoman for Senai

The “new” cabinet member Wee Ka Siong had promised to bring the discussion of EDL toll charge to the cabinet meeting, yet, the EDL toll charge was not reviewed by the cabinet yesterday. Johoreans may have to suffer for a few more days or even months until further announcement.

However, Wee Ka Siong revealed that the EDL toll charge had been decided even before MCA returned to the cabinet.

So, it proves at least this decision is used as a retaliation towards Singapore VEP hike since the latter was only announced by Singapore Land Transport Authority on July 1st. Yet, it also proves that the decision of CIQ toll hike, or should be named correctly as EDL toll charge, is actually daylight robbery that takes money directly from people’s pocket to be put into the cronies’ coffers.

Besides that, the UMNO government must explain when did they make the decision and why did they wait until the last minute to announce it publicly? Isn’t it important that the government should first clarify and explain fully to the people such a drastic change to their daily lives?

More importantly, what was the role played by Prime Minister Najib Razak in the decision making process? Did he give direct instructions to impose the EDL toll charge?

People must have already noticed that the EDL toll charge was not only announced 2 days before Hari Raya Aidilfitri, but also announced in the form of a piece of statement issued by the Malaysia Highway Authority.

This is very unusual as Prime Minister Najib Razak or Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was always one of the persons to make the announcement or comments on the toll fee since Najib took over as Prime Minister on April 3, 2009.

Are UMNO leaders avoiding the responsibility of imposing the EDL toll charge?

Najib himself promised in 2012 March parliament sitting that EDL would be toll free, however, his promise was broken by his cabinet without any clarification to the people. This is the most terrible failure he committed and a horrible Hari Raya gift to Johoreans.