The recent medai report citing Finance Minister Najib Razak that he no longer encourages selective bidding (direct negotiations) for future government contracts demands serious attention.
Many in the business - including non-contractors - will welcome the finance minister's statement given the reported abuses by unscrupulous high-ranking officers in government ministries and departments.
Selective bidding is undoubtedly a source of corruption and in most cases, the bidders will have to inflate the cost of the contract many time over to cover the cash payouts to corrupt officials whose ‘services’ are solicited.
The auditor-general's annual report, year-in, year-out only captures a fraction of a much larger scope of corrupt practice between the contractors and the officials.
The talk among God-fearing servicemen is that among the many government ministries, the defence ministry is said to be one of the major culprits to have favoured contracts through selective bidding over the open tender system.
Such talk on the shop-floor can be easily ascertained by reviewing the files in the Procurement Division and Treasury.
These records will reveal the extent of contracts awarded through selective bidding, the favoured companies that are awarded the contracts and the immense inflated costs incurred.
Clearly, there is an obvious trend to award higher-value contracts through selective bidding and awarding such contracts to preferred companies that are well-connected to high-ranking government officials.
As a case in point, the army's procurement plan under the 9 th Malaysia Plan has a total of nine (9) projects awaiting approval for selective bidding. It is anyone's guess if the same goes for our air force and navy procurement plans.
In total, such procurement would cost millions. It will not be surprising, too, that a well placed foreigner with connections at the top is awarded some of the contracts.
Such are the practices at Mindef and they have been for quite some time now and nobody really cares.
Given the minister's statement coming after all these years of blatant malpractise, one can be forgiven for wondering if the statement made by the finance minister would really add up in the final analysis.
Or perhaps, it was all meant to be in mere jest or as often is the case, or a mere 'politically correct' statement.
Hence, if we really want the government and the rakyat to gain legitimately, then selective bidding for government contracts must cease without any further deliberation.
Failing which, the head that announced this measure will have to roll.
