Monday, October 23, 2006

AND THE WINNER IS ...

... the Scomi Group! At his meeting with Dr M yesterday, the PM denied he favoured his son by giving him lucrative government projects.

Perhaps Abdullah really wasn't aware that starting this month, Scomi Marine Bhd would be transporting coal from Indonesia and Australia under a US$50 million contract awarded by TNB in April, just before the start of the PM's problems with Dr M.

Ironically, when tender was called, Scomi was NOT even one of the seven companies short-listed. [The 7 were Malaysian Bulk Carrier, Wawasan Bulk Services Sdn Bhd, Duta Marine Sdn Bhd, Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd, PNSL Bhd, Habib Corporation Bhd, and Selayang Shipping Sdn Bhd.]

The PM also probably didn't know that you can actually win a contract without bidding for it! Here's how Scomi Marine, the associate company of Scomi Group, the giant corporation owned by his only son, did it:

12 July 2005 - Tender ads appear in the media. Closing date 12 August.
22 Aug 2005 - Technical committee recommends that 5 of the seven bidders be accepted for further evaluation. Wawasan's proposed price is the lowest. Habib is disqualified.
23 Aug 2005 - Opening the second envelope. Habib is back in the running.
7 Oct 2005 - TNB Fuel Board meets to discuss recommendations made by the Commercial Evaluation Committee to award the project to 4 companies. Habib and another company to be dropped unless they matched Wawasan's proposed price.
4 Jan 2006 - TNB Fuel Board decides to award the project to ALL six companies.
28 Feb 2006 - Letter from MoF [the PM is the Minister of Finance, by the way] approving the awarded party as recommended by the TNB Board
12 April - TNB Fuel issues Letter of Intent to ... Scomi Marine Berhad!
25 April 2006 - TNB Fuel receives "Form 13" dated 27 Sept 2005 on change of company name from Habib Corp Bhd to Scomi Marine Bhd.

The three-year contract took effect Oct 2006.

Additional reading on this subject:
Setting the record straight
PM's not sorry, Utusan is!
Sorry PM


20 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:19 am

    If these dubious transactions were done in Taiwan, Abdullah would be under pressure to quit and his son on his way to Sungai Buloh prison.

    May God save Malaysia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rocky!

    Here is a BIG SCARY fact, Pak Lah is for real, a bigger Moron, a man suffering from an early stage of alzheimer, he forgets let alone making decision. Try checking on the other Finance Minister, I strongly believe, with basis, that he and Kali are the biggest puppet masters when dishing MOF-approved contracts. UMNO Supreme Councl members, especialy that sanctimionious Shahrir Samad, that fake and self appointed Malay nationalist that I found out later, try and do something, otherwise you all are also just as Morons in monkey suits!
    To remind you all again: Pak Lah, he may not know it, is controlled by certain palace guards who are not even Malays!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:50 am

    Must get your fact corrected. Scomi Marine was Habib before.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rocky! You and all of Us!

    We need to rethink our perception on Pak Lah. I believe he is a battered and drugged up father-in-law, who happens to be THE Prime Minister of this country! This is very dangerous indeed! I do not know the solution to this problem. And the ramifications to the country (including all Malaysians), the Malays, NEP, to everything dear to the Malays, are very, very serious!
    I believe only Umno Supreme Council can act and to do something, really fast!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous10:51 am

    Sdr Rocky

    Looking at the sequence of events, it is hard to say that Scomi didn't take part in the tender. Habib was the old listed company that the Scomi group injected their marine business into and it subsequently changed name to Scomi Marine.

    I think it would be splitting hairs to say that Scomi Marine didn't take part in the tender when it is the exact same corporation that only underwent a shareholder change and subsequent change of name.

    Seeing how you clearly have great contacts in TNB, it would be better to analyse and get greater details as to whether the Habib / Scomi bid was evaluated properly and how the thinking process at TNB evolved to award the tender to all the participants.

    In the end, were all six successful participants given the same opportunities and what was the final price of the tender ?

    Selamat Hari Raya

    bangsarboy

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rocky!

    Did it occurs to you the meeting between Pak Lah and TDM was made when there are no papers around for the meeting to be reported, at least!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:17 am

    bro,

    The PM was telling the truth. He was not favouring his son with lucrative contracts. You see, what he meant to say was that he did not know he was favouring his son in the TNB contract (or other government/GLC contracts).
    The truth is it was not him who called the TNB committee to award it to Habib/Scomi.
    What is happening is that the PM does not know what is happening. All the contracts that Scomi got was "on the strength of Scomi" read: PM's son did it all on his own by simply asking for the contract.
    I may be wrong, but I don't think the PM made a call to certain people to give contracts to his son. Kamal did it all on his own. The way son-in-law (soon-to-be-ex-according-to-Pasquale) Khairy gets his way for him and his buddies. All on his own.
    And here's the upshot --- goes to show that we really have a sleeping Prime Minister.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous11:19 am

    one day, our Prime Minister will wake up to find that his son, Scomi and son-in-law in deep crap.
    And he didnt even know about it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous1:14 pm

    Bru, what do you think is happening to Datuk Khalid? Do you think he has also succumbed to pressure to spin in favor of the PM? Poor Khalid. Poor Utusan.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1:25 pm

    Amazing! Habib Corp was disqualified twice at the evaluation process and still got the contract. Moral of the story --You guys out there who's lost your bids for government/glc tenders, change your company's name to Scomi and you'll know it does not matter if they drop you along the way because the Pak Lah name will carry you through!

    Based on the chronology here, it is quite clear thta the process of evaluation was done about the same time Habib became Scomi Marine (Habib disqualified in August, became Scomi in September and was very much in the runnning again by October).

    Scomi won the contract but it doesnt change fact taht it was Habib thta bid for it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. ex bt reporter, i just met bro khalid at a buka puasa the other day. he seemed the same man, called me "Bru" instead of "Bro". But the people around him changed. There was Hisham, the GEIC of NSTP, Syed Faisal, the CEO of NSTP, Mikhail, senior editor from Bernama, Kamarulzaman of TV3. I believe Khalid is doing his best under the circumstances but I don't think he'll succumb to pressure from the fourth floor boys and certainly not from Kalimullah. but if that pressure comes directly from Pak Lah, it'd be a different story. Khalid kalah dengan Pak Lah. Not too long ago, Khalid vowed he would never accept a datukship while he's still a serving editor. He did turn down the datukship recommended to him by Pak Lah, who was then DPM i think, but Pak Lah called him ... and that's how he became a reluctant datuk.

    but look at Utusan. I think on good days, it still has the gumption to defy the spin doctors. Only, maybe, those good days are few and far apart of late.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous1:51 pm

    Either the man is the BLUR KING of all times or he is the biggest actor, or the BIGGEST Liar. I really am confused. If all these are true, how could he made such a bare faced lie to TDM that his son and SIL are clean when all these are going on? Maybe they appear to be legal but surely it is plainly obvious to the whole world that they barely skirt the boundaries of legality and blatantly infringes on the question of marality.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous2:20 pm

    Bro,

    With Permission.

    Dearest Tun,

    1.An official meeting (if we may call it and not a social visit chit-chat) is not a meeting unless the minute is jotted by the Setiausaha and there must be at least two witness yang tidak 'FASIK'.
    We the 2nd.Gen called "LEPAK-ING' and not a meeting

    2.Hadith Rasulullah s.a.w on the subject of Islamic Law of Evidence
    narrated.
    'kamu telah pertikai dihadapanku,mungkin ada diantara kamu yang lebih petah berhujah(memberi keterangan)daripada yang lain,lalu aku menghukum berdasarkan apa-apa yang aku dengar daripadanya:Sesiapa yang telah aku hukumkan baginya hak saudaranya sesuatu (yang tidak berhak lantaran hujahnya uyang petah),jangan ia mengambilnya,kerana aku telah memotong baginya sekeping api neraka" -Sahih Muslim aL-Nawawi.

    3.Obviously you know what 'aL-Baiyinah is?Witness Tun.

    4.The senario given,tidak lebih daripada perjumpaan antara seorang rakyat mengeluhkan perasaan kepada si Kerani di any counter pertanyaan .

    5.Action Tun please before thing get hay wired!!

    Selamat Hari Raya Tun.

    Wassalam.

    ReplyDelete
  14. bangsarboy & anon (10.50am), technically you're not wrong about the fact that, technically, scomi marine was there from start by virtue that habib corp later became scomi marine.

    technically, too, scomi marine, having bought into singapore's chuan hup holdings ltd, which has one of the largest fleet of ships and barges in the region, is probably the most "equipped" (as against "qualified") to do the job to transport coal for tnb.

    but this is also a moral question, has become so since talk that scomi was getting too much for the little that it had. which is why i started off with that bit about the PM telling the ex PM that, no, "I don't given my son lucrative projects".

    having said that, my sources told me that habib was dropped twice, not once, from the race (because, simply, it didn't qualify!) and still managed to come back into the game and eventually got a piece of the pie.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous5:49 pm

    Tuan Rocky,

    Dari apa yang saya baca dan dengar tentang pertemuan Dr Mahathir dengan PM, saya rasa ia tidak membawa apa-apa hasil.

    Air yang keruh tetap keruh. Malah mungkin lebih keruh kerana mereka bercakap bahasa yang berlainan.

    Dr Mahathir bercakap tentang isu. Tentang hal ehwal negara. PM cakap pasal populariti. PM lebih utamakan populariti dirinya daripada menjawab Dr Mahathir dan menyelesaikan masalah negara.

    Maka itu, sampai bila-bila pun masalah tak akan selesai, macam ayam bercakap dengan itik. jadi kesimpulan saya, pertemuan itu membuang masa saja.

    PM kita nampaknya terlalu sangat taasub kepada populariti sebab itu dia tak habis-habis ungkit tentang majoriti besar pilihan raya 2004.
    Nampak seakan-akan politik adalah mmatlamat bagi PM buka cara untuk mencapai matlamat.

    Kalau macam itu, eloklah Ku Li atau Anwar ambil alih teraju pemerintahan negara. Pemimpin yang popular tak semestinya pemimpin yang berkualiti.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous7:04 pm

    labu ibnu labi

    tapi.... soal nya ialah Pak Lah tidak popular.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous8:51 pm

    We have a Prime Minister who constantly doesn't know. Does he know anything at all? One wonders.

    Or is it that beneath this "I-don't-know" facade, is a devious man who thinks that by portraying his ignorance, he is guilt-free?

    Either way, AAB has to understand that the public is deeply disappointed. We expected a more knowledgeable and proactive style from him, one that is more becoming of a Prime Minister of a vibrant economy of so many races.

    Why does he even think that he has become less popular because of Tun's rants about him and the way he is running the country? The reason why AAB has become considerably less popular is because people find resonance in Tun's grievances. Tun echoes our doubts in many instances, about Scomi, about KJ and about Kalimullah. Remove these three factors and AAB will find himself much more popular than he can believe!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous5:10 pm

    The P.M said, "I don't know but I will find out".

    And how many times have we all heard this from him, when issues are brought to his attention?

    Did he say for once, "I will share with you all my findings" ?

    We have a set of mainstream media who get the courage to ask him many things at media sessions but not on "Have you found out on the allegations about your son and son-in-law?"

    Or are the media guys told in advance, never to raise that question?

    PM can come up with his own way of 'telling all' to the rakyat, not necessary the way wanted by those who are against him. But no sign of such initiative too.

    It's getting complex indeed.

    And those who claim to also be a better alternative to the ruling powers, are lying low - no views, no feedback, no reaching out to the public on this interesting state of affairs and building their case for the change they always dream about.

    The problem may be - all are opportunists, waiting for one set to be evicted so that the next set can do the same, in a different style.

    By the time the public come to know that the aim of these different sets are the same and its just different styles, it will be too late.

    Good luck to all of us.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous1:17 am

    Rockybru,

    U rightly said abt scomi marine's history with habib. Good to know that you do acknowledge the truth.

    Having said that, do check for yourself the credentials of chuan hup and their involvement in coal transportation. much to be said on its track record and its only a natural extension of an enterprising company.

    Just be glad we still have food to eat at the end of the day

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous11:07 am

    Rocky,

    The moral of the TNB story is... DO NOT WASTE ENVELOPES WHEN QUOTING
    THE TENDERS AND ALSO WORRY NOT ABOUT CLOSING DATES.This way trees are saved and Malaysia stays evergreen.Closing dates induce unneccessary stress on the applicants.See how these new ways of conducting businesses promote greener environment and healty life styles.Let us be proud of the legacy we leave behind for our kids.

    ReplyDelete