‘Garbage corruption’: Cassa provides proof

The Consumer Association of Subang and Shah Alam has released documents allegedly showing a number of fishy garbage disposal contracts awarded by the Shah Alam local council.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Consumer Association of Subang and Shah Alam (CASSA) has released a set of documents to prove its claim that there have been numerous irregularities in the awarding of waste disposal contracts in Selangor.

CASSA president Jacob George, who is also Selangor Consumer Council head, had in the past week highlighted complaints from more than 30 unhappy contractors and whistleblowers who alleged that cronyism and corruption were rife in the awarding of garbage collection contracts in several local councils in the state.

Among others, there had been allegations that those more deserving had been sidelined and those unqualified given tenders. CASSA had since lodged reports with both the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

George had also given the state government an ultimatum to either freeze all tenders given out recently pending probes into the allegations; or he would personally spearhead a “roadshow” campaign to discredit the Pakatan Rakyat government.

The document CASSA gave to FMT recently appeared to be a list of shortlisted contractors who won garbage collecting contracts for the Shah Alam municipal council. The document, said George, was an internal list of successful companies that was leaked to him by a mole.

Five questions

George, who handed over the document to Selangor MACC, alleged that a quick view of the document would raise at least five separate questions that clearly showed irregularities and abuse:

“One. Why was there a single company ‘Hebat Abadi’ which received contracts for four different zones namely Zone SA7B Section U6, Zone SA22 Section 15 and 16, Zone SA23 Section 17 and Zone SA38 Section 6, 16, 25 and 28?”

“Two. Why was a husband (Sani Mohamed Yusof of the ‘Sri Melor’ company) and wife (Hayati Md. Said of the ‘Yatisa Enterprise’ company) both awarded a contract?”

“Three. Why were two different companies awarded two separate contracts have the same person (Azmi Mohamad) as the owner?”

“Four. Why was there a company that doesn’t even have a company name awarded a contract?”

“Five. Why were companies based outside of Shah Alam given these contracts when the local council should protect local contractors and give priority to those companies?”

‘This is despicable’

George also claimed that many cases in which companies successful in tenders had sub-contracted work to companies that participated in the tender but had failed.

“That’s wrong. Such things are rampant and we must do away with all this ‘sub sub culture’. This is despicable. I’m sick and tired of this double talk by Pakatan, who we have, in truth kept quiet about for the first few years. We now clearly see that they are doing what they themselves criticise their predecessors to have done,” he said.

George stressed that those responsible for this “mess” should resign immediately.

“Evidence has been handed over to MACC and we will make sure whistlebloewrs are available to be interviewed. Was there a tender board or just made through phone calls, was there abuse of power or corrupt practices in various forms? If they can’t even handle garbage issues, there’s no point talking about taking Putrajaya,” he said.

George alleged that the garbage issue was “only the tip of the iceberg” and he was disappointed that the Selangor government had failed to address his complaints properly.

He claimed that all complaints to CASSA against local councils had over the past few years amounted to over 300 cases.

George said he had been widely criticised over the issue and had even received threats in the form of calls and SMSes. There was even an incident when rubbish was dumped on his car.

Meanwhile, several attempts to contact Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim and local government, research and development committee chairman Ronnie Liu to comment were unsuccessful.

In October last year, the Selangor government took over the cleaning of public places and collection of solid waste that was previously handled by Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, which had been widely criticised over its performance over the years.

The state said it would save RM20 million annually with the move.

Alam Flora, a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom Bhd, was awarded the concession rights for solid waste management in 1998 for the central region covering Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Pahang.

A new batch of garbage collection contractors for Selangor had been selected and had started this month. The contractors were selected by local councils throughout the state since the tender process started in January.