Policy centre: Say no to exclusive health concessions

Bumiputera preferences should also be re-examined, with potential savings of millions of ringgit if middlemen are cut.

Patients will benefit if monopolies are ended, says Galen Centre. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The government should end monopoly concessions in the healthcare system and review preferential policies for Bumiputera companies, a policy centre said today.

Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy said the government practice of exclusive concessions created a monopoly for consessionaire companies, and granted them major influence over the health system.

The centre’s head, Azrul Mohd Khalib, said an unhealthy overdependence on these companies had developed, with the belief that these companies would soon become “too big to fail”.

Azrul Mohd Khalib.

PPBM strategist Rais Hussin said Pakatan Harapan was against any form of monopolistic practices, but the problem was not the Bumiputera policies but their implementation, which resulted in a privileged few becoming tender agents and forming a cartel.

Rais Hussin.

In the days of Barisan Nasional, Rais charged that it was the “Umnoputras” who controlled everything, through the rent-seeking mindset and the award of lucrative contracts for companies linked to politicians.

“Bumiputera companies still need help. But being a branch or division chief or a Supreme Council Member shouldn’t be a criterion.

“There must be due diligence in awarding contracts, the companies must have a good track record, we must look at the personalities, expertise, experience, and capabilities of the companies,” he said adding the implementation of the policies needed to be improved.

Rais said Bumiputera empowerment needed to be reinvented to help expedite the process of teaching them “how to fish”.

The federal government has set up a taskforce to examine government procurement, which came in the wake of an expose of companies linked to politicians close to the previous government which controlled the supply of billions of ringgit worth of medical drugs to the government.