The 3 stooges and another ....

Revelations from Malaysia Today on how people were awarded contracts from JKR makes us wonder why these things only happen in this country. The award of the contract smacks of servility, subserviency, and corruption. Take for example the contract for the design, construction, equipping, commissioning and maintenance of a new 300-bedded hospital in Shah Alam.

Now for years, we all have been talking about the need to have a general hospital in Shah Alam and Subang. The populations in these two municipalities have reached to a level that the Tengku Puan Rahimah hospital in Klang simply cannot cope with the additional population when it has to cope also with the expanding population in Klang, Banting and other nearby towns in Selangor. Petaling Jaya has at least a general hospital in the form of the University Hospital. Subang Jaya has no hospital to cater to the general public. It has, however, one in the form of a private hospital that caters to those who can afford to be treated there, what with its predatory charges by the so-called medical "specialists". So, it stands to good reason that a general hospital must be built to cater, at least for the time being, to the peoples of Shah Alam and Subang. The final choice for the hospital to be located was finally made at Shah Alam. Good, I am all for it. One hospital is better than no hospital at all.

So, it came to pass that a "turnkey" contract was called and was ultimately awarded to a company on Nov 9th 2007. [This is just about 4 months before the 2008 General Election when Khir Toyo was the Selangor MB, Samy Vellu was the Works Minister, and Dollah Badawi was Malaysia's PM.]

The turnkey contract was awarded to a company called Sunshine Fleet S/B with its office in Section 13 Shah Alam. The person that accepts the contract on behalf of the company is Tengku Arafiah who is the younger sister of the Selangor Sultan. To me, it doesn't matter who accepts on behalf of the company as long as he or she is authorised to do so by the company's board. For all I care, the accepting signatory can be that of the office boy of the company. The contract amount is RM 482,600,000. A big sum by any standard.

Just a week later, this turnkey contract was sub-contracted in whole to a company called Isyoda (M) S/B for a sum of RM 451,231,000 by the Executive Chairman of the main contractor who is the same Tengku Arafiah. The difference of RM 31,369,000 is the amount that Sunshine potentially will make come the end of the contract. However, Isyoda in turn, committed to pay the EC personally a sum of RM 46,231,000 progressively for her contribution in procuring the award and in future consultation on the contract works. The person who signed on behalf of Isyoda is one Ir Mustapha Jusoh. So in all, RM 77,600,000 (16.08 % of contract sum) was supposed to be taken away from the contract which meant that the contract was actually worth RM 405,000,000.

The contract was for a period of 32 months . Exactly when Isyoda took site possession and commenced the contract works, I don't actually know at this time. But apparently, in performing their contract, Isyoda ran into troubles. There were delays and so on. In fact, so much so, that, on the 5th of February 2009, the sub-contract was terminated by the main contractor on the excuse that Isyoda was not keeping up with work schedules. The EC wrote a letter (I can't believe that she could write so well, like a lawyer) to this effect telling Isyoda the progress had not been more than 12%, going on at the rate of about 1% per month (at this rate, it will take 88 months to complete) as reasons for termination. Prior to this, the letter also implied that there had been hostile exchanges between the 2 parties.

Then on the 10th of February 2009, the main contractor awarded the sub-contract in whole to GM Healthcare S/B for the latter to complete within 24 months from 15/02/2009 for the contract sum of RM 400,900,000.

Slightly more than a year later and for reasons not known at this time, the main contractor again faces problems, this time with the second sub-contractor, GM Healthcare. GM was so pissed off with the whole arrangement with the main contractor and what transpired since, that its CEO, one Elvin Toh, wrote a confidential letter ( I can't believe that he could write so well in Bahasa, including the ampuns and the pateks) to the Sultan of Selangor stating that GM had paid some than RM 34,510,000 to Tengku Arafiah and Sunshine, had invested some RM 74,510,000 in the project, and had received some RM 35,000,000 from JKR. GM had also suggested that JKR terminate the main contract and instead re-award the contract to GM for a contract sum of RM 480,000,000. He seemed to suggest the JKR was amenable to "mutual termination" and awarding the contract to GM who would abide by the terms of the original agreement for the contract balance and to finish the project by May 2011, with no further delays. By so re-awarding the contract to GM who will undertake to complete the job on time, it would save the Sultanate's face or so the letter said.

I have only to blame squarely on JKR for not being diligent enough to find out the financial and technical capabilities of Sunshine and the highly dubious system of negotiated tender. In the first place, who is Tengku Arafiah other than the fact that she is the Sultan's younger sister. Is she a civil engineer, or an architect, or someone who had had a lot of experience in building or contract works ? And is her company experienced enough and financially capable to undertake such a massive project worth nearly half a billion ringgit. It looks to me that she and her company are nothing more than a Mister or mistress 15 percent.

And who or what is Isyoda (M) Sdn Bhd. On surfing the internet, Isyoda (M) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Isyoda Corporation Bhd, a company that has been recently de-listed on the KLSE. [No wonder there was no financial information on the Internet]. Isyoda is a civil and building contractor and has recently been awarded to build a hospital in Johore. As for Sunshine Fleet Sdn Bhd, it's 70% owned by Tengku Arafiah, 20% owned by her uncle (Tengku Abdul Samad) and 10% owned by her son (Tengku Azamuddin). These people are nothing but a bunch of predatory Tungkus with no particular skills to run a company let alone manage a big project; the only skill they possess is one for using their "royal connections" to make a quick buck. I don't think they can distinguish between an army barracks and a 300-bedded hospital. And JKR is stupid enough to let this extremely important project for the people of Selangor to be run by the three incompetents... more likely Three Stooges. These people ought to be lined up before a firing squad.

And what of GM Healthcare? It looks to me that, as always, it's a chinaman company with a toothless Malay chairman. The person who calls the shots is Elvin Toh. Serves him right for being in trouble when he ought to know better that one has to be very, very careful when dealing with these tungku-tungku for the latter want nothing else but free money. Why complain that money has been siphoned out when cheques have been made out to them - plus RM 5 millon to Tengku Arafiah and about RM 400K to her son. And JKR, the institution tasked with the building of the hospital for the rakyat, looked pretty silly to me to be a standby spectator.

This hospital fiasco reminds me of the contract to build the Shah Alam mosque way back in the early 1980s and the Selangor road re-surfacing contract in the late 1980s. I have no information on the mosque contract - mere rumours really for then there was no such thing as the internet. But the Selangor road re-surfacing was a joke for then the MB had the power to influence on who the contract was to be awarded to. Being somehow involved indirectly in the construction industry, and knowing the contractors who were actually involved in the bidding process, I have enough info to write this down.

Apparently, there were 4 or 5 contractors bidding for the contract. Story has it that Contractor D was the lowest bidder while Contractor A the highest, by several millions of ringgit. [At that time, the MYR was strong, being not more than RM 2.50 to the USD]. But the contract was awarded to Contractor A, at the highest price, give or take a few ringgit. Then Contractor A approached Contractor D, the lowest bidder who agreed to undertake a sub-contract in whole at his price, which is the lowest. Contractor D had no choice but to agree to sub-contract the job, since he was desperate for the contract.

But you may ask why the contract was awarded to the highest bidder ? You see, the CEO of contractor A happened to be the girlfriend of the MB (whom he later married and was forced to divorce] and that she was of royal blood - a very close one in the royal family if you can imagine. [I knew her indirectly through my knowing someone who knew her intimately and who bragged about his relationship]. The contract difference of course went to the CEO of contractor A. It's a cosy arrangement by someone who thinks nothing of abusing his political power.

Update 24/11/2010: I read somewhere that Sunshine had terminated GM as the sub-contractor while in turn JKR had terminated Sunshine as the main contractor. This is of course to be confirmed. If this is true, will JKR finally call a new tender or is it going to be another exercise in "negotiated" tender ? Meanwhile, the rakyat is still waiting.

Update 02/12/2010: Latest I heard is that JKR has terminated the main contractor and is recalling tenders for the completion of the hospital. Let's us hope that, this time, JKR call for competitive bids and award the balance of the contract to a qualified building contractor. Meanwhile, JKR should not only ban Sunshine Fleet but also its directors/owners from further participating in govt. contracts.

Enough is enough.

More to write ....

Malays must have fighting spirit ...

I read somewhere that Najib, in a written speech read by someone else to the Chinese community in Malaysia, said that "Malaysia has no future without the Chinese". He went on to explain why. What does he mean by saying that. Does it mean that if the Chinese were to suddenly disappear then Malaysia gets into real trouble which I mean that the Malays will become impoverished, that they will starve to death, and the country will plunge into chaos.

Of course, we will never know what is going to happen to the country and to her Malay population. But what we do know is that did the Malays ever starve before when there were no Chinese in this country. We had a thriving economy during the Sultanate of Melaka, so much so that the West viz. namely the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British fought one another to gain control of Melaka . Where were the Chinese then ? True there were some that came to Melaka to earn a living here working under the British or to trade. The Chinese also came here to do business with the Malays when Admiral Cheng Ho visited Melaka, a few centuries ago. Were the Malays then starving ? Was Melaka then in a state of chaos ?

Najib's thinking is just the same as those British colonialists or those Malayans then that said if the British were to leave Malaya, Malaya then would have no future. When the British really left Malaya, the future then that is now the present, is what we have now. True, if suddenly the 30% Chinese population were to disappear suddenly tomorrow, the disappearance will cause some hardships. I will also grant that some 6 million Chinese is a big number indeed and its absence will disrupt the normal life in this country. But we Malays have gone through this before when the British left Malaya after being kicked out by the Japanese. Not a single Chinese contributed in helping the Malays because the Chinese (and I can't blame them for not helping) were busy fighting for their lives as the Malays did under the Japanese. The Malays managed themselves by going back to the land, to grow their foods for them and their children without ever getting any help from the Chinese.

Look at it from an analogy of Malaysia as a manufacturing company producing goods for exports when it loses its personnel. Lets say that 30 % of the staff - comprising top management, middle management and workers, were to leave suddenly. The company's operation would of course be temporarily disrupted. Production is cut down, sales will suffer, and profits will be affected. But the factory will not close down and it still has a future. The company will have to ride the hardships through until it re-organises and re-structures itself to bring back the production to the previous level. It will close down or go "bankcrupt" if, and only if, the demands for its goods totally disappeared. But then, people have the will to survive. If the there is no demard for their goods, all they do is to produce other goods that are in demand. Certainly, the company and the people manning the company will have a future.

The trouble with Najib is that he is a defeatist, like the first PM of Malaya then who was a defeatist. And because of that, he succumbed to the British, to give citizenships to the Chinese and Indians in order for Malaya then to gain independence. He lacked the will to fight. The same thing happened when he gave up Singapore to the Chinese. Lee Kuan Yew had to be belligerant because he was fighting for his life and the PM of Malaya then, rather than fight it out to counter the man fighting for survival, lacked the will to fight, and meekly surrendered Singapore to Lee in an obvious manifestation of defeatism. Is Najib now showing signs of defeatism ?

Kiss me Kate ...

I wonder how many times has horny Prince William had pre-marital sex with randy Kate Middleton since they first met in 2001. At that time, which was about 9 years ago, they were both about 19 years old and have lived together briefly, so the newspapers say. When Diana married Prince Charles, she was a virgin, but when Prince William marry Kate Middleton, which is sometime in the spring or summer of 2011, Kate is already wise in the ways of sex, if not most of the time with Prince William but also with other young men during the time when she broke off with Prince Williams in 2007.

In the latest interview, she appeared to be unease as though being about to be married, especially to a member of the Royal family, was no big deal, as if she had done this before. She appeared not be highly excited at the prospect of being with William and in fact seemed blase about the whole thing.

I don't know why David Cameron was "delighted" at the engagement. I suppose, being a Prime Minister, he has to say something about British Royals when he heard of the news. I am now waiting for news on dirty Harry, William's younger brother. He has been very quiet of late.

The fastest gun alive ...

At last somebody has got the guts to make adverse comments against the police in connection with the fatal shooting of 3 young men, one of whom is just in his mid-teen, in Glenmarie. The police story was that they gave chase to the 3 men in their car which crashed forcing them to get out of the car. On being confronted by the police, the men wielded parangs in order to attack the police who shot them dead. The police inspector in charge later announced to the press that the men were seasoned criminals. Three dead men were dubbed the "Gang Minyak" because they specialised in robbing isolated petrol stations in the wee hours of the morning.

Just a few months ago, the police shot a 14 year old boy when the boy panicked in his car. The police story was the same. The boy had a parang in his car, that he tried to reverse the car into the police and the police in response gunned him down with 32 rounds of bullets used.

Its better to shoot and ask questions later since, as they say. "dead men tell no tales" or " a good injun is a dead injun". Why bother about hurting these people or arresting them when you have to go through the hassle of putting them in jail, feeding them, and then taking them to court for trial. It's better to kill them outright and be done with it.

The full comments were made by the Lawyers for Liberty - Surendran and Fadiah Nadwa Fikri which appeared in MT today.

Update 20/11/2010: The families of the 3 that died in the shooting incident in Glenmarie are taking legal action against the police. The families believed that their children were "murdered" rather than being shot in the course of their attack on the police which apprehended them after a robbery.

The price of gold ..

Some idiots somewhere in the world, most probably, they are in the USA, are speculating on the price of gold. Remember, they were the same idiots that speculated and drove up the price of crude oil to nearly USD 150 a barrel sometime ago. They drove the price up from about USD 30-40 barrel over a period of about 2 years up to the highest ever before settling it down to the current USD 70-80 per barrel.

Five years ago, the price of gold was about USD 468/= per troy ounce while just a year ago, the price has gone up to USD 1,061/= per troy ounce. Just about 6 months ago, it has gone up t0 USD 1,162 while the highest it has ever reached so far was USD 1,421 per troy ounce in Nov 2010. Some people have speculated that the price of gold will hit USD 2,000/= per troy ounce by 2012. While gold is a non consumer item, unlike oil, and its price is not as volatile, the higher rate of increase currently seen, is due, no doubt, to speculative trading in the world market. When will the speculation end, no one knows.