PETALING JAYA, July 31 — The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) today said it will maintain pressure on authorities to not revive the Petaling Jaya Dispersal Link (PJD Link) project that was cancelled today.
Muda spokesman VKK Raja said the party would be the voice of Petaling Jaya residents in blocking the return of the project under a different skin.
“That is our pledge and it will not be revived. We have witnessed this political drama before, and history has shown that projects like these can resurface under different names,” he said at a press conference here at Muda’s main operations centre here.
“A vote for Muda and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) is a vote to ensure that PJD Link will not be revived or rebranded.”
Raja, who will contest in the Bukit Gasing seat, today said the timing of the cancellation by caretaker Selangor menteri besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari during the campaign period for the state election was dubious.
Saying that the impact assessments that led the Selangor government to cancel the project had been completed months prior, Raja said the decision could have been made much earlier.
“It is worth noting that these reports have been accessible to the Selangor state government for several months, yet the cancellation was not initiated earlier. This sequence of events has led us to believe that external pressure may have played a role in this outcome,” he said.
Present were SayNoToPJDLink volunteers and other Muda candidates for the Selangor election: Abe Lim (Bandar Utama), Zayd Shaukat (Subang Jaya), and Dobby Chew (Seri Setia).
Earlier today, Amirudin announced the cancellation of the proposed PJD Link that was approved by the previous federal government under the prime ministership of Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob in April last year.
He said that based on the SIA report, his caretaker administration “is not satisfied with the plan that has been presented because it does not fulfil the conditions” that had been previously set by the state.
The PJD Link was a proposal to build a 34.3km dual-carriage expressway with four lanes and eight interchanges/ramps as an alternative to the heavily-trafficked Lebuhraya-Damansara Puchong (LDP) to connect various fast-growing townships with Bandar Utama at one end and Bukit Jalil at the other end.
It bore a striking resemblance to the controversial Kidex that was cancelled in 2015 by the Selangor government then under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) leadership of Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali who has since joined Bersatu, a party that is today a component of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.
Azmin pulled the plug on Kidex in February 2015 because its developer did not produce relevant supporting studies for its proposal, namely an SIA, a traffic impact assessment (TIA), and an EIA besides failing to reveal the toll rates and full concession agreement.
Amirudin said the PJD Link was approved in principle by the federal government on November 12, 2017 — then under Barisan Nasional control.
He said the proposal was then submitted to the Selangor Economic Action Council on September 3, 2020 for a residential survey to be carried out in Petaling Jaya before it was presented to the federal government on November 12, 2021 and given a conditional approval.
