Jake's View | Legco on right track in seeking to derail high-speed rail link
We could make mushroom farms of the tunnels already built, at least that would be useful
The controversial high-speed railway project inched closer to a possible construction halt and a costlier price tag after lawmakers yesterday failed to vote for additional funding ...
SCMP, February 28
I cannot think of a better solution than that all further work on this wastrel project be cancelled outright. Not only would this stop us from throwing more good money after bad but we could make mushroom farms of the tunnels already built. That would at least put them to some useful purpose.
Let’s get the background here straight first. Not only has the bill for this new railway already climbed from an initial HK$39.5 billion to HK$84.4 billion (and counting ... fast) but no-one in this town ever asked for it in the first place.
Beijing bureaucrats foisted it on us as part of the national high-speed rail initiative, a costly state venture that has proved only another crippling burden on mainland banks forced to carry the entire financing load although initially their exposure was to be limited to 40 per cent.
Beijing has played coy with the figures but apparently the revenues do not even cover the operating costs and now are never expected to do so. Call this another several trillion yuan in bank bad debt. This network was built for reasons of national vanity, not national need. There is a price for such folly.
