Another typical leak at Treasury
Company 1/21 is a tight financial condition and have too many big projects in hand with tight deadlines. It is not too sure they can deliver as promised in 2 years time. But why was the company given and recommended by these Little Napolean of questionable morality?
Another Brick in the Wall
Last week, UMNO President Dato Najib Tun Abdul Razak announced plans for economic empowerment of Bumiputera. [Read again here]
Every other person was complaining of nothing new. One of our concern was no serious effort to address past problems of leakage, inefficiency and sabotage on past empowerment programs. Leakage and inefficiency tend to be blame on government machinery.
Najib’s intention to improve delivery is understood and appreciated. Only problem is the PEMANDU outfit. The other choice to PEMANDU is to leave it to the civil servant to independently run government machinery.
True, we have been a strong advocate to abolish PEMANDU and return the role to EPU, but it is not a blanket endorsement for all because had there not been for privatisation, JKR would still not complete the North-South Expressway yet.
The case we like to bring up is a case of leakage involving a recent tender for a Ubiquitous System for Jabatan Kastam dan Eksais Diraja (Customs). The underlying problem is clear and it is ubiquitously morally wrong.
MACC should be alerted because it has corruption, kickbacks, collusion and abuse of power written all over.
When we exposed how policies and procedures was abused by big names being bandied to be associated to Najib in the tender for Accrual Accounting System for Accountant General Office [read here], wonder whether MACC have made a raid on Ministry of Finance.
If not, this Customs tender involved some big names, big money and abuse have been allowed to go on for too bloody long time. It is killing competitiveness, making a mockery of market friendly affirmative action, and any rhetorics along capacity or nation building.
One way to address is to raise level of morality and sense of responsibility. As our late sifu used to say, one cannot operationalise morality but only set policies and procedures.
Customs have an on-going system, doing well since 1992, and can be upgraded, but decided to change it into a system called Ubiquitous system. Not sure the technical meaning but ubiquitous means “present in all places and at all times“.
The tender is Pembangunan Projek Sistem U-Customs for jabatan Kastam dan Eksais Diraja Malaysia. Tender date closed on March 11, 2013.
As usual in any IT tender, interested companies would shop around the world for systems solution. Everyone involved could basically know who has been shopping for what. With some effort, one can know how many have approached the most powerful solution Artiquator, the only use in France Bull system, Korean Posco and Microsoft.
Before awarded, the user, Customs would determine which system and technical package meet their requirement and interest them.
They would also ascertain company knowledge and ability to understand the Customs process, have technical experience, and capacity and commitment level. Having a Artiquator system solution but no technical experience in the Customs process is not necessarily an advantage.
There are also issues of financial capability and obviously cheapest tender price.
Then all these is passed to Ministry of Finance. Prior to reaching the Tender Committee chaired by Najib, the papers and documents have to be sent to a committee of Little Napoleans.
The Little Napoleans will would vet through Customs review and make their own recomendation. It would be usually strange for user comment to be far different from the Little Napoleans’.
Usually Najib and the Committee of top level government officers sometimes including MoF II would merely approve as recommended by the Little Napoleans. No story of Rosmah interference through husband or politician making a quick buck.
Members of the Tender Board are:
1. YAB Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Hj Abdul Razak (Chairman)
2. Tan Sri Irwan Siregar (KSU)
3. Dato’ Mat Noor Nawi (TKSP-Dasar)
4. Datuk Nozirah Bahari (TKSP-Pengurusan)
5. Dato’ Fauziah Yaacob (TKSP-Sistem & Kawalan)
6. Dato’ Hashimuddin Mohamad (Setiausaha Bahagian Perolehan Kerajaan)
