Health Minister's Liow Tiong Lai's free ride to the coveted WWW15 plate number bid is not good for the health for the Road Transport Department's (RTD) so called ‘open tender' plate number bid system, says PKR.
"This latest development will make the public to lose faith in the RTD open tender system," claimed the party's Investment and Trade Bureau chairperson Wong Chen (left) today.
Speaking at a press conference at party headquarters in Petaling Jaya, he also pointed out that the ‘free' bid allegedly accorded to Liow, saw the RTD losing RM24,200 in revenue to the public coffers which the agency will have to account for.
"How will RTD explain to the other successful bidders of the WWW open tender, including the Sultan of Johor who had to pay in full?" he asked.
Conflict of interest
More seriously Wong Chen said, the directive to do away with the bidding fee for Liow may represent a problem of conflict of interest or questionable use of ministerial powers.
"We note that RTD is under the Transport Ministry. The Road Transport Act empowers the transport minister with wide discretionary powers but does not give such powers to the director-general of the agency.
"We also note that Kong Cho Ha (right), the secretary-general of MCA, is the current transport minister. We sincerely hope that this is not a case of one MCA minister helping another."
He also urged the government to come up with proof that there is a directive that a minister can write in for a number plate free of charge from the RTD.
Unless this is done, Wong Chen said that it may seem that MCA ministers are "loose cannons" that invent directives as and when they like.
He also asked why did Liow bother to bid for the number in the first place, risking disruption of the tender process, if knew he could get it for free.
On another level, Wong Chen also hit out at Liow's apparent uncertainty about the WWW15 bid, disclosing that all bidders will have to fill in the MV10 form that requires their signature plus a bank draft of half the bid amount.
There is no way Liow was ignorant about the bid, the PKR leader argued, as the minister was named as the bidder, if it was the Health Ministry as Liow claimed, then the name of the ministry, not Liow's, would appear as the bidder.
"This latest development will make the public to lose faith in the RTD open tender system," claimed the party's Investment and Trade Bureau chairperson Wong Chen (left) today.Speaking at a press conference at party headquarters in Petaling Jaya, he also pointed out that the ‘free' bid allegedly accorded to Liow, saw the RTD losing RM24,200 in revenue to the public coffers which the agency will have to account for.
"How will RTD explain to the other successful bidders of the WWW open tender, including the Sultan of Johor who had to pay in full?" he asked.
Conflict of interest
More seriously Wong Chen said, the directive to do away with the bidding fee for Liow may represent a problem of conflict of interest or questionable use of ministerial powers.
"We note that RTD is under the Transport Ministry. The Road Transport Act empowers the transport minister with wide discretionary powers but does not give such powers to the director-general of the agency.
"We also note that Kong Cho Ha (right), the secretary-general of MCA, is the current transport minister. We sincerely hope that this is not a case of one MCA minister helping another."He also urged the government to come up with proof that there is a directive that a minister can write in for a number plate free of charge from the RTD.
Unless this is done, Wong Chen said that it may seem that MCA ministers are "loose cannons" that invent directives as and when they like.
He also asked why did Liow bother to bid for the number in the first place, risking disruption of the tender process, if knew he could get it for free.
On another level, Wong Chen also hit out at Liow's apparent uncertainty about the WWW15 bid, disclosing that all bidders will have to fill in the MV10 form that requires their signature plus a bank draft of half the bid amount.
There is no way Liow was ignorant about the bid, the PKR leader argued, as the minister was named as the bidder, if it was the Health Ministry as Liow claimed, then the name of the ministry, not Liow's, would appear as the bidder.
Weak answers
Liow courted controversy when he was announced as one of the winners of the coveted WWW open tender bid, clinching WWW15 for a bid of RM24,200.
His weak answers to why he bid for the number putting him under greater public scrutiny and ridicule which turned into outrage when he suddenly announced yesterday that a RTD official told him the number was free of charge.
He then passed the buck to the agency requesting the press to cease bothering him and refer their queries to it instead.
Media reports earlier quoted an unnamed RTD source as saying that all successful bidders will have to pay to get their numbers.
Others who bid and won the coveted plate numbers included the Sultan of Johor who paid a whopping RM500,000 for WWW1 and the current Agong who won WWW5.
His weak answers to why he bid for the number putting him under greater public scrutiny and ridicule which turned into outrage when he suddenly announced yesterday that a RTD official told him the number was free of charge.
He then passed the buck to the agency requesting the press to cease bothering him and refer their queries to it instead.
Media reports earlier quoted an unnamed RTD source as saying that all successful bidders will have to pay to get their numbers.
Others who bid and won the coveted plate numbers included the Sultan of Johor who paid a whopping RM500,000 for WWW1 and the current Agong who won WWW5.
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