Book those guilty over KLIA2 fiasco, says Tony Pua

All those found guilty of negligence over the KLIA2 project fiasco, resulting in its extensive delay and increase in construction cost, must be “brought to book”, demands DAP publicity secretary Tony Pua.

As such, he urged the Transport Ministry to disclose details of theindependent report produced by audit firm KPMG, which had reportedly completed its audit on the project.

“We urge the Transport Ministry to make public the report given the scale of the scandal and the public interest involved. All those found guilty of negligence must be brought to book.

“Pakatan Rakyat members of parliament will pursue this matter relentlessly until those who are responsible for this multibillion ringgit disaster is punished for their crimes,” he said in a statement issued today.

Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad (MAHB) had in early May admittedto the delays in the construction of the controversial RM4 billion low-cost carrier terminal, scheduled to be opened on June 28.

It reportedly blamed the delay on non-delivery of parts by contractors, and said it will impose liquidated and ascertained damages (LAD) on them.

Choose 'competent successor'

However, the Petaling Jaya Utara MP (left in photo) questioned why both the ministry and MAHB had never raised this issue of contractor non-performance before, despite the matter having been brought up by both him and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar (right in photo) on numerous occasions in and out parliament, over the past 18 months.

“At the end of the day, the buck stops with MAHB as the project manager and owner and the entire top management of MAHB must bear full responsibility for the embarrassment and fiasco.

He also said a “competent successor” must be found to replace current MAHB managing director Bashir Ahmad Abdul Majid, whose contract is said to be ending this month.

“It is clear that Bashir has failed to competently manage the single largest project by MAHB during his reign and his contract must not be renewed.

“A competent successor must immediately be found to clean up the mess in MAHB to ensure that there are no further delays to the completion of the airport as well as capping the cost to taxpayers for the project.”

Since the project was first tendered in 2009, it was hampered by numerous delays and problems, causing cost to escalate more than 100 percent from RM1.7 billion to RM4 billion last year.

The delays also pushed its completion date, initially slated for September 2011 to June 28, as of March 9, but that, too, has since been deferred indefinitely.