Mediation by former rail chief saved HK$85.3b cost of Hong Kong high-speed rail link from going higher
Mediation by former KCR chief credited with HK$85.3b estimate for link
The cost of the cross-border high-speed rail project - which has ballooned to HK$85.3 billion - could have gone much higher if a former senior executive of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation had not persuaded contractors to drop prices, New People's Party legislator Michael Tien Puk-sun said.
The revelation comes as a Legislative Council select committee prepares to grill MTR Corporation chief executive Lincoln Leong Kwok-kuen today over the further delay in the over-budget rail link to Guangzhou.
Tien, a former chairman of the KCR and chairman of Legco's transport panel, said he asked James Blake for assistance in resolving the spiralling cost of the project. They met with MTR management in late May, who later agreed to allow Blake, who was CEO of the KCR when its operations were merged with those of the MTR in 2007, to mediate and hopefully persuade contractors to limit charges.
This month it was revealed that the estimated cost of the 26km line had increased to HK$85.3 billion - from an original projection of HK$65 billion - and the opening date had also been pushed back from 2017 to the third quarter of 2018. It had been slated to open this year.
"The only party that can afford to be flexible is the contractors, since the government and the MTR are tied up by the entrustment contract," Tien said of the agreement under which the MTR is building the line. "And I think they came down quite a bit."
He said Blake, also a former secretary for works, told contractors to look ahead. "[He] persuaded the contractors to look at projects with the MTR in the long term, as there are seven to come."
Blake could not be reached for comment.
Despite Tien's description, an MTR spokesman said: "The corporation does not have any mediators in our discussions with our contractors."
On the vexed question of a joint Hong Kong-mainland immigration facility at the West Kowloon Terminus, Tien said he believed the government would back the proposal that had the least impact on Hong Kong. That could mean empowering local officers to execute mainland immigrations laws. The idea of a joint checkpoint has raised concerns over the impact on the "one country, two systems" principle.
