PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli has revealed yet another letter in his ongoing series of exposes accusing the caretaker government of trying to bulldoze contracts worth billions of ringgit for cronies.
This letter, which details the approval of an RM285 million reservoir sewerage upgrade project in South Klang, is dated Oct 27.
Rafizi pointed out that this approval was issued 17 days after Parliament was dissolved on Oct 10.
The letter is purportedly from the government procurement division of the Treasury to the Environment and Water Ministry secretary-general.
It states that the Finance Ministry has examined and approved the reservoir sewerage upgrade project to be offered by the Environment Ministry directly to the same company that was involved in two other flood mitigation projects at a price of RM285,334,744.40.
“This letter confirms that there are projects that were approved by BN and Perikatan Nasional (PN) ministers after Parliament was dissolved, which is clearly against the law,” Rafizi said in a press conference at the PKR headquarters today.
Malaysiakini has reached out several times to the company for its response, and these have been unsuccessful till now.
Rafizi had previously described the company as an “Umno crony” firm.
He had also earlier claimed that the company was also awarded two direct tender contracts for flood mitigation projects from the Environment Ministry, worth RM578.6 million and RM2 billion, respectively.
Rafizi said this latest letter means that the caretakers, the outgoing Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man and the outgoing Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, can no longer deny that there were projects approved after Parliament was dissolved.
He also declared that the two cannot hide behind administrative responses by saying that the letters of acceptance of the tenders (surat setuju terima) were not issued to the company yet, nor can Tuan Ibrahim claim ignorance of the matter.
Giving a brief explanation of how the procurement process works, Rafizi said the project proposal has to come from the ministry - in this case, the Environment and Water Ministry - which would then decide on a form of tender for the project, be it open tender, limited tender or direct negotiation.
If the ministry were to suggest any modes, other than open tender, the approval of the Finance Ministry is required.
Similarly, for any project allocation that is above a certain price, the Finance Ministry’s approval is also required.
After the Finance Ministry’s approval is acquired, the relevant ministry would issue a letter of acceptance of tender to the contractor.
“Hence, to determine whether a project was approved after the dissolution of Parliament, the date that is referred to is the date… when the Finance Ministry gave its approval,” Rafizi said.
Letters of acceptance yet to be issued…
As of now, he added, the letters of acceptance of tenders for all three projects have yet to be issued to the company, due to his exposure of the deals, which means those projects have been approved but the works cannot yet start.
Rafizi then questioned whether the rush to approve these projects was to raise funds for the 15th general election.
Aside from that, he said Tuan Ibrahim and Zafrul have to answer several pertinent questions.
They need to explain what their relationships with the said company are, such that they are willing to award big contracts worth about RM5 billion in total to that one firm, despite its problematic track record.
The two of them also need to clarify whether there could have been up to RM150 million in savings if those three projects were offered via open tender, as claimed by civil servants who provided Rafizi with the relevant documents in these matters.
Rafizi said the company’s monopoly on big projects means the government is not getting the best possible price.
“I would like to inform voters that these projects have not had the letters of acceptance of tender issued yet because I exposed the issues in the procurement process.
“If BN and PN win in GE15, with the approvals that have been given thus far, these projects will be given to that company.
“It would be a waste of the sacrifice of those civil servants who took the risk of exposing this matter,” Rafizi said.
If another government were to come to power, then these project approvals from the Finance Ministry can be cancelled, he added.
Tuan Ibrahim has previously said he would file a defamation suit against Rafizi, while Zafrul said the approval for the RM2 billion flood mitigation project was done by the book. - Mkini
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