Another Kedah state project awarded 'without open tender'

ALOR SETAR (May 24): After raising the issue of three state projects that were awarded without open tenders, Kedah Gerakan on Wednesday claimed that another project was not given out via an open tender as promised by the Opposition.

The project highlighted by Gerakan was the building of Kolej Universiti Insaniah's (Kuin) permanent campus in Kuala Ketil at a cost of RM330 million and owned by the Kedah government.

Kedah Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang said the project was implemented by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bina Darulaman Bhd (BDB) (in which the Kedah State Development Corp has a 55% stake), Kedah Sato Sdn Bhd, but the company then appointed other companies to carry out the construction.

He said in September 2009, the state government had appointed Kedah Sato to build a permanent campus for Kuin at a cost of RM330 million.

"In 2010, Kedah Sato took a RM330 million loan from Bank Islam [Malaysia Bhd] to finance the project and during the same year, it appointed IJM Construction Sdn Bhd to build the campus.

"The appointment of IJM Construction was done without an open tender. The question here is why wasn't there an open tender, where according to Pakatan Rakyat's Orange Book, they were supposed to use open tenders, especially for large projects," he told a press conference on Wednesday.

Tan said other than the Kuin campus project, three other state projects awarded without calling for open tender have been revealed,  the Aman Central Shopping Centre (RM500 million), Amansuri Residences project (RM109 million) and the Sungai Limau Hydrocarbon Hub project (RM36 billion).

"I cannot believe that in the four years that Pakatan Rakyat has ruled in Kedah, they have carried out four large projects with a total value of nearly RM36.94 billion and all of them without an open tender.

Tan also said the Kedah Gerakan Youth had sent a memorandum to Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to answer all the issues raised by the party regarding the open tender, but has yet to receive any response from him. — Bernama