28 May,2018 08:19 PM IST | Kuala Lumpur | IANS
Mahathir Mohamad
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Monday said that he will drop the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (KL-SG HSR) project, as part of his efforts to restore the financial health of the country.
Mahathir made the remarks at a press conference, saying it was "a final decision" to cancel the project, but Malaysia still had to talk to Singapore over a penalty concerning the withdrawal, Xinhua news agency reported.
Mahathir said the penalty was around 500 million ringgit ($126 million). In an interview with the Financial Times earlier, he called KL-SG HSR as one of the "unnecessary projects".
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To control public spending, he also introduced a 10 per cent pay cut for his Cabinet ministers, abolished some organisations and vowed to terminate the contracts of some 17,000 public employees.
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