Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli (pic) had used a 16 year old study to calculate the cost of the MRT SBK line, says Barisan Nasional Strategic Communication team.

It said in a statement that Rafizi had resorted to creating a simplistic "normalization" formula in a desperate attempt to defend his previous claim that the cost of the MRT was two and a half times more than the Seoul Line 9.

"In order to make this simplistic claim, Rafizi had used a 16 year old study which stated that the cost to construct an underground line can cost up to three times the cost of an above ground line,” it said.

Barisan was responding to Rafizi's recent claim that the Seoul Line 9 was 112.5 km long instead of 37.5km.

Here is the statement:

"On Dec 27, apparently using information from an unverified and anonymous WordPress blog named "Pedestrian Observation", Rafizi publicly made the accusation that the fully underground 27km Seoul Line 9 MRT project cost USD43 million per km.

He further claimed that despite being fully underground, the Seoul line per km cost is 2 1/2 times cheaper than the MRT1 SBK line which he calculated to cost USD103 million per km in an attempt to lie to the public to malign the government.

The next day, we exposed his lies and pointed out that based on verified sources instead of his favoured anonymous blogs, the Seoul Line 9 was 37.5km long and cost USD5.7 billion or USD152 million per km - not USD43 million per km as falsely claimed by Rafizi.

On New Year's Eve, Rafizi agreed with us but now astonishingly claim that the Seoul Line 9 should be considered as 112.5 km long instead of 37.5km and then claimed we were lying.

It was Rafizi who publicly claimed ii was 27km at USD43 million per km. We corrected him using verifiable sources that it was 37.5km long at USD152 million per km.

He agreed with us but in his strange underwater world, he now astonishingly claims that we are lying as the physical 37.5km long line should be considered to be virtually 112.5km long or exactly 3 times longer.

Rafizi resorted to this strange proclamation by creating a simplistic "normalization" formula in a desperate attempt to defend his previous misleading claim that our MRT1 SBK cost 2 1/2 times more than the Seoul line.

In order to make this simplistic claim, Rafizi had used a 16 year old study which stated that the cost to construct an underground line can cost up to 3 times the cost of an above ground line.

The study cited by Rafizi actually claimed that cost difference ranges between 2 times to 3 times. It is unknown why Rafizi would use the upper limit of 3. Using the lower limit of 2 would show very different results.

He then claimed that the Seoul Line 9 is completely underground although it is not. For example,  the Gaehwa station to the airport connection is above ground.

In fact, Line 9, being the 9th line of Seoul's expansive MRT system, has multiple shared stations with other lines which further reduces cost of the Line 9 project.

He also ignored the fact that tunneling costs varies greatly based on geology.

For example, the Seoul line 9 runs along the south banks of the Han River where the majority of the tunneling is through soft compacted soft sand as opposed to the hard granite and limestone formations of Kuala Lumpur.

Certainly, tunneling through soft sand is less expensive and quicker.

There are also economies of scale considerations as multiple shorter underground tunnels would cost more on a per km basis as compared to a much longer uninterrupted tunnel project.

On top of this, Rafizi continues to use RM28 billion as the cost of the MRT SBK line stating that it must include RM7 billion of consultancy fees - despite MMC-Gamuda having already announced that Rafizi is wrong and that the consultancy fee is RM750 million.

These are just some of the many wrong assumptions that prove Rafizi's formula is misleading and unworkable.

With the many fatal flaws, it is clear that Rafizi's own simplistic normalization formula is unrealistic and amateurish.

It is nothing more than his "syiok sendiri" effort for him to defend his earlier claim and hide his shame of being publicly exposed as the liar he is for making the earlier false claims.

The Seoul Line 9 is 37.5 km long and cost USD152 million per km, which Rafizi now agrees - not 27km long costing USD43 million per km as Rafizi had earlier claimed.

The facts remains that on a per km basis, the Seoul line 9 is more expensive than the MRT SBK line - not otherwise as earlier claimed by Rafizi.

If Rafizi did not initially lie, he would have stuck with his initial claim that the fully underground Seoul line cost USD43 million per km.

He could then use his self-created multiplier of 3 to "normalize" the cost to be USD14.3 million per km and then claim the MRT1 SBK cost ten times more instead of just 2 1/2 times more. Ten times more would make for more sensational headlines.

You would also notice that in his latest statement, Rafizi no longer dares mention the 5.8km Barcelona Sants-La Sagrera  "MRT Project" which he had also initially claimed to cost 2 1/2 times cheaper than the MRT SBK Project.

This is after we had previously exposed that this particular line is just a connecting underground tunnel connecting two stations and not even an MRT projectt - which was silly of Rafizi to compare a bare tunnel with the MRT SBK project.

We would like to see how Rafizi can also "normalize" a bare tunnel into a complete MRT project.

For the third time, we request that  if YB Rafizi still believes that the higher capacity underground Seoul MRT project cost US$43 million per km, he should question the DAP Penang Government why their smaller capacity above ground LRT project cost 50% more at US$64 million per km.

And again, we request Rafizi should question the Penang Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng why does the Barcelona tunnel cost USD39 million per km (in 2011 exchange rates) while the Penang Tunnel project cost 4 times higher at USD162 million per km (in 2011 exchange rates).

Rafizi has repeatedly misled the public with false claims in order to incite the public to hate the government.

We again call on Rafizi to stop embarrassing himself any further after being repeatedly exposed and admit his failure and deceit."

Source:
courtesy of THE STAR

by The Star

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