Monday, December 11, 2006

Wither open tenders?

P. Gunasegaram, in his column in The Edge, had been one of the first to ask the question: What happened to open tenders and bids? [read his April 28, 2004 column here].
Last week The Edge carried the editorial, Whither open tenders? It asked the same questions Guna was asking nearly 3 years ago, the same ones many of us have been asking, too.
Why are are there increasing indications that open tenders for government projects are going out the window in place of direct negotiated or exclusive deals? .
...Some recent analyst reports virtually singled out YTL Corp as getting lucrative deals, among them a RM600 million transport-related job, a RM1 billion river cleanup and a RM150 million ERL terminal job at the new Low Cost Terminal in Sepang.
...It would seem that analysts and fund managers are of the opinion that such jobs will not go through a tender process. Otherwise, they would know better than to position certain companies as landing lucrative jobs without such certainty. They best way is to display clearly that open tender should be the norm in awarding big jobs. Then the whispers will stop and there'll no longer be an issue of open tender not being implemented.
YTL Corp is just one instance. One of the most memorable, to me at least, was the proposed RM400 million project to build a new palace. During the groundbreaking ceremony, it seemed nobody in authority had any idea who was going to get the project. Days later, the Press was told that the project was to be awarded to one Maya Maju Sdn Bhd. [open on Maya here]

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:44 am

    Good post, i just found out your post at Malaysian Blogs Readers http://mylink.com.my . It basically list all new malaysian blog post automatically.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:19 am

    Pak Lah, Kali and 4th Floor Boys.

    They are the classic CTSB!

    Malaysian Business asked the same question last month.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:49 am

    *TypicalProgrammer*

    I am convinced that Pak Hypocrite has fail to archive what he has promise especially on corruption. To me he has fail where is matter most, the economy. At least TDM brought the economy up while feeding his cronies. Pak Lah just commits daylight robbery and neglect the economy. I agree that most major project like the penang bridge have not been put up for tender as Pak Lah has promise.

    "It still the economy Sutpid"

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:38 pm

    Bro, just read in the soon-to-be-defunct Utusan that the RM3 billion monorail project for JB was given to Jalur Mudra Sdn Bhd. What's the beef behind this company? Asking cos Singapore's GLC SMRT Corporation is keen to take up quite a substantial stake in the project. Cheers.

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  5. Anonymous1:12 pm

    we need to tell this politicians that actually there are other ways to earn a good living in from business , other than being goverment- dependent CONTRACTORS !!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:15 pm

    we need to te3ll those polticians that there are other ways to earb a good living from business other than being goverment-dependent contractor .

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1:57 pm

    The BN/UMNO is bashing the Chinese in the annual meetings, but they are giving out huge lucerative projects to this greedy YTL chinaman crony in the past, present & future, wtf...?

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  8. Anonymous4:09 pm

    The answer my friends in blowing in the wind.....

    How many times must Pak Lah promised
    Before it's called a promise?

    The answer my friends is blowing in the wind.

    How many time must Pak Lah lied
    Before it's call a lie?

    The answer my friends is blowing in the wind.

    How many times must Pak Lah pledged
    Before it's called a pledge?

    The answer my friends is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.

    jk,am9,

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous4:47 pm

    woo hoo hoo.. evil crony like YTL?

    but the evil crony actually has the skills, knowledge and a track record of world-class projects, like YTL Sentul, KLPAC, Starhill, Mariott, Pavilion (soon)...

    so, i think YTL really deserves it.

    better than passing it to a bumi shell hence hiking up the cost about 200% before sub-contracting it out to a chinese.

    an evil crony is Vincent Tan....look at Berjaya Times Square....

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  10. Anonymous6:20 pm

    If there is anything that needs the man in the street to ask, it is this: "Where's the transparency and nothing-to-hide promise that the PM espoused in his early days?"

    More and more, it is obvious that the Fourth Floor is starting to behave not any different from the cronies of the previous PM. Ah..the circle of life..

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous9:37 pm

    ding ding

    it's transparently corrupt
    that's the new tranparency la
    "transparent corruption"

    LOL

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12:27 am

    Brother Rocky

    Era 2004 hingga kiamat, rakyat malaysia akan saksi kan the making of 'Saddam - Asian Version' yang mana si Melayu pak mengantuk meluncai kan kaum nya, si ketam ketam dalam bakul bakul yang di tangkap seperti dalam wayang 'Happy Feet'.

    Timbul pula Mat Rempit ber tukar jadi James Bond aka Budak Itam menyelamatkan si luncai...

    Kita saksi kan lah dan sama sama kita rakyat malaysia, umat islam melayu khasnya meratapi kebodohan sendiri kerana tidak meng-ikuti ajaran Al Quran & Sunnah yang dah di perturun kan lebih seribu tahun dahulu...

    Alangkah benggap nya umat malaysia ye...

    ReplyDelete
  13. thank u ktak.

    Singapore company to help create Johor Baru's monorail project?! I would have missed that if not for your alert.

    A while back I heard that instead of sourcing them locally (from suppliers of KL Monorail), the people involved in the JB monorail project decided to source their coaches all the way from China! And they were going to pay more for it, too. Of course the local players claimed that the coaches from China are nowhere near as good as our own.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous5:17 am

    Sdr Rocky,

    Don't underestimate Pak Lah. He may fall asleep regularly, but he's one cunning fox.

    He has survived politics for decades by not doing anything, except sleeping and pleading "tolonglah Pak Lah."

    The Istana project and Maya Maju are not new. They are products of the last government.

    Maya Maju is a Bumi company. It received the LOI to build the palace many years ago but was held back because of conflicting views whether it should be in the city or Putrajaya. Now Putrajaya has an Istana Hinggap.

    Now Pak Lah decides to restart it. He's very selective in cancelling and implemeting Mahathir-era projects.

    However when the LOI was signed the price was much less than RM400 million. So when he restarts a Mahathir-era project, the price tag is higher. But he says he wants to balance the budget.

    In short, we are doomed. This man has no sense of proportion. Damned Mahathir for selecting him and he deserves the penghinaan for that wrong choice.

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  15. Anonymous5:58 am

    The tender process is and has always been an open process. There's no doubt about it. Beleived me. There's nothing wrong with the tender process. Please understand the meaning of 'open tender'. Open tender means it's not for the public dont you understand!. It's only open to the sucessful bidder that have already being selected. It only open to the public not for bidding but for 'making noise'. That what the goverment want's. When AAB says Tender Process to be open and transprancy, it does not mean open to the public niether are 'transparency'. Read his 'stomach' for the actual meaning and you find out what he actually saying deep inside. What I heard is ' Open tender and transparency in the eye of ehem ehem...Am i misleading you or I have been misled by the Goverment or UMNO or PAS or KEADILAN or.. maybe I ' not in teh boleh land' I used to be once upon a time ago.

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  16. Anonymous12:03 pm

    Want to know/learn about open tenders and transparency?
    Just check out Singapore's HDB (housing & development board) and JTC (Jurong Town Council) website. The way they call for tenders, and the tenders results are published for the whole world to see.

    ReplyDelete