Tailoring firm denies Nga helped secure contract

A Ipoh-based tailoring company partly owned by DAP Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming's wife, denied that it had sought his help to secure a contract to provide lounge suits to Ipoh City councillors during Pakatan Rakyat administration.

In a statement issued today, two directors of Ethan & Elton Sdn Bhd - Leslie Cheong and Henry Ooi - stressed that Nga's wife Wong Seow Ching is just a minor shareholder not involved in the firm's daily operation or management.

Nga was a state exco in-charge of local government during Pakatan's rule.

Refuting the allegation by Perak MCA that the company has no track record in the industry, the statement pointed out that both Cheong and Ooi had chalked up years of tailoring experience prior to the inception of Ethan & Elton in 2008.

"Ooi was the Ipoh branch manager of renowned tailoring company Sparkmanshop Tailoring, and Cheong is a senior tailor. They had tailored suits for many VIPs including former Perak Menteri Besar Tajul Rosli Ghazali and former work minister S Samy Vellu.

"The suit tailoring tender for city council was not open during the BN administration. When the tender was opened after Pakatan took over the state government, we decided to participate to show our support. The whole process was transparent," read the statement.

It claimed that the price for each suit ordered by Ipoh City Council from a tailoring company during the BN administration was RM800, but it was later dropped to RM600 by the company through the open tender process.

Take issue to MACC dare

"The city council saved RM200 for each suit. The allegation by MCA and Umno bloggers, that our price was RM650, is a blatant lie."

The company was responding to the allegation by several pro-BN bloggers that the Pakatan-led Perak government favoured its cronies in awarding contracts in 2008.

Nga had denied the allegation and challenged the bloggers to take the case to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), claiming that the whole process was above the board.

Dissatisfied with Nga's explanation, Perak MCA yesterday urged him to provide more answers while one of the bloggers, Ahmad Sofian Yahya, lodging a report with the MACC.

According to the purported Ipoh City Council meeting minutes published by the bloggers, the council had appointed another company, Goodman Tailor, in 2007 through direct negotiations, but the Pakatan-led state government suggested that the contract being given to Ethan & Elton.

They also published the tender list for the lounge suit contract, revealing that Goodman was the lowest bidder at RM450 per suit, and that Ethan & Elton was the highest bidder at RM650.

However Ethan & Elton claimed that the final transaction price was RM600 per suit, which only surpassed other competitiors' prices by RM50 to RM100 due to different the fabric and quality.

"Perak has 15 local councils but our company only tailored suits for one council. This proves that Nga has not interfered in the decision making of local government," read the statement, adding that the company will take legal action against the baseless allegation.

Nevertheless, both Nga and the company have not cleared the air on whether the state government instructed the Ipoh City Council to award the tender to Ethan & Elton, as revealed by the council meetings' minutes.