JOHOR BARU, April 1 — Malaysian Malay Contractors’ Association (PKMM) president Datuk Mohamed Fadzill Hassan today urged the government to reintroduce a previous system of having all the government’s development projects centralised under one agency for better transparency.
He said the centralised system was introduced during the previous administration where all government projects were issued and supervised by the Implementation Coordinate Unit (ICU), which was under the Prime Minister’s Department.
“Our association, which has about 14,000 members nationwide, supports the present government, especially the Finance Ministry’s efforts in renegotiating all projects as we understand that our economy is not doing well due to financial issues.
“However, the problem is that all the projects are being issued by the respective ministries, departments and agencies under it, which is difficult for contractors,” said Mohamed Fadzill told reporters after officiating the association’s Johor branch annual general meeting in Taman Universiti here.
Previously, the ICU, which was under the Prime Minister’s Department during the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration, was responsible for coordinating, monitoring and evaluating government policies and development projects.
Its main focus was to ensure that the government met its development agenda within the approved timeframe and budget allocation.
Mohamed Fadzill said the old system can eliminate any lobbying by irresponsible parties that want certain government projects to be awarded to them.
“We also hope the government will carry out an open draw system to award projects to contractors and those that are awarded should not get another project for about a year to provide opportunities to others,” said Mohamed Fadzill.
Mohamed Fadzill also urged the government to increase the value of projects to afford contractors in the lower group better opportunities.
“Contractors under the G1 class can only apply for jobs worth not more than RM200,000, while those in the G2 group can apply for projects between RM200,000 and RM500,000.
“But those in the G1 class have already been frozen for about 10 years as they do not have any contracts for them, while a majority of contractors in the country are within the G2 class,” said Mohamed Fadzill.
He said if the government could increase the value for G1 contractors to RM300,000, it would help create healthy competition within the industry.
