Costly Blunders

I read in the New Straits Times regarding costly blunders in awarding contracts. These facts were revealed yesterday by Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop and deputy Auditor-General Anwari Suri.

The article was about contractors who were incompetent, who lacked expertise but yet were awarded government contracts. These contractors didn't have the finance, the skilled manpower and didn't have the equipment in the first place. How was it that they were able to get the government contracts? You don't need Agatha Christie or Hercule Poirot to solve this one.

The government has itself to blame when the 'give to bumiputra contractors only' policy came to effect. Why would the bumiputra contractor be bothered about competency, or doing a good job or even finishing it. The subsidy mentality is in existence. The government will bail him out all the time. He would have got 15% as advance payment to be used to start the contract. So, when he gets the advance, the first thing is to get an E-Type Jaguar to be used for site meetings among other things. Then get a second wife although maybe not in that order. When things are given out, the welfare mentality takes over. In the beginning the suppliers will agree to supply the required materials and the banks might give loans based on the Letter of Acceptance. When the money doesn't come in, the supplier and the banks will turn the screw tighter. The supplier will demand cash for the building materials.

The contractor will go crying to the government that the non-bumis are not helping him! The little 'Napoleons' in the Finance Ministry and the Works Ministry try to help the 'poor helpless' contractor by getting him some money from the revolving fund meant for the deserving bumiputra contractors. That money will also dissapear. The contract will be terminated with some poor civil engineer who happened to be in charge of that project having to write out a full detailed report on what happened. It will then take months for the contract to be retendered. The cost of the project of course would have gone up. Is this really news? This has been going on for a very long time.

Poor management in the various government departments is also to blame. This is because of another unwritten policy that the head of any section must be a bumiputra and it doesn't matter if he or she is inexperienced. This state of affairs will go on until the government wakes up to the fact that non-bumiputras can manage the department and manage it well too. The government has to stop playing the races against each other just to stay in power. It was announced that RM2.1 billion has been reserved for 32,000 class F contractors. Who are the class F contractors? Bumiputras. What about the rest of the non-bumiputra contractors? Who is being marginalised here? The government must come up with a plan that will include everybody regardless of their race or religion.

There must be a paradign shift in the minds of the executive from being fearful of other races to that of working together for the good of all. Take a look at the Chinese muslims in Malacca. Just to allow the Chinese muslims to build a mosque for them to worship is a big problem for the Malays there! "Mosque for Chinese Muslims unnecessary, says Malacca CM" screams the headlines. When are the politicians going to grow up in Malaysia?