By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 — Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd (SPNB) has willingly surrendered all documents on the RM960 million Ampang Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension project to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), its group managing director said today.
Datuk Shahril Mokhtar denied that MACC’s visit to SNPB yesterday was a “raid”, and stressed that the Ampang LRT project owner had absolutely “nothing to hide.”
PKR’s Rafizi Ramli alleged today that the MACC had confiscated important documents that would shed light on alleged misappropriation in the awarding of the Ampang LRT extension project.
“We monitor the blogs, what Rafizi says. We contacted MACC, who came by yesterday on a fact-finding mission.
“MACC came, and we gave them what they wanted. We gave all the documents relating to the Ampang LRT tender,” Shahril told The Malaysian Insider.
“Before they came, we were already ready. We have nothing to hide,” he said.
When asked to comment on Rafizi’s claims as to the awarding of the tender for the project, Shahril said:
“He (Rafizi) can say what he wants. It was not a raid. We are transparent,” he added.
Rafizi has demanded Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak state whether George Kent Consortium was actually awarded the contract, saying his denial last night was “dismissive and he was clearly avoiding the question.”
PKR has claimed to possess “solid, documentary proof” that the prime minister intervened in the awarding of the contract, and has lodged a police report over alleged criminal breach of trust and abuse of power.
But PM Najib denied yesterday that he had a hand in the selection of George Kent for the Ampang LRT project, insisting that the process was “done properly.”
“The haste with which MACC acted to ‘raid’ Prasarana’s office also raises the question whether this is more an attempt to seal off all documents that can prove the award to George Kent and GK’s disqualification as a front runner from this tender,” Rafizi told The Malaysian Insider.
He said the onus was also on SPNB to come clean with the status of the award contract.
“Starting from next week, we will begin disclosing the details of the evaluation to show how much an award to George Kent is, in fact, a threat to public safety, besides the fact that they do not deserve the tender,” Rafizi said.
PKR had previously questioned a Business Times report that a George Kent Bhd joint-venture could win the RM960 million contract for the Ampang Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension project, saying the consortium had been eliminated in the bidding process.
Rafizi had said on June 22 that he “can expose that George Kent is not the consortium that was chosen in Prasarana’s open tender process” despite the speculation by the business daily.
The Malaysian Insider reported yesterday that the speculated winner of the Ampang LRT system works, the George Kent consortium, was one of three bidders that failed both the technical and commercial evaluation for the RM960 million contract.
Sources told The Malaysian Insider that only five of the eight bidders passed the technical and commercial evaluation stage but project owner SPNB finally recommended one of the two South Korean consortiums in the running — PDA Consortium — as the other consortiums were said to have not complied with all conditions.
PKR officials have shown copies of official documents to the press, showing that the Ministry of Finance’s (MoF) Acquisition Committee, which met on January 25, had decided to award the contract to the Balfour Beatty Invensys Consortium.
The committee is the highest decision-making body in the MoF and is chaired by Najib himself, who is also finance minister.
The Business Times said Putrajaya was due to announce the winning bidder by the end of June, adding that George Kent was tipped to get the lucrative project. The highest bid received for the project tender, which closed on June 16, was RM1.45 billion.
But PKR’s sheaf of documents showed that the SPNB meeting on December 2, 2011, had recommended that PDA Consortium undertake the project for RM1.12 billion over 44 months. SPNB is a wholly-owned unit of the MoF and the company has budgeted RM1.5 billion for the system works.
SPNB is spending some RM7 billion for the extension of both the Kelana Jaya and Ampang LRT rail networks. The Ampang network will be extended by 17.7km.
Apart from extending the current LRT lines, Putrajaya is also undertaking the multi-billion ringgit My Rapid Transit (MRT) project that will snake through the capital city. The country’s most expensive infrastructure project to date is to be ready by June 2017 but there have been delays and reluctance by international companies to bid for the tenders on offer.
The Land Transport Commission (SPAD) has announced that up to RM160 billion could be spent on railway infrastructure projects in the country, making Malaysia a tempting destination for international engineering firms.