Wan Saiful’s trial: Approvals for direct negotiations for Jana Wibawa projects came from PMO, witness tells court

By admin-s On Mar 25, 2024

Approvals for the Jana Wibawa project, be it through open tender or direct negotiation, were approved by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), said Datin Rosni Mohd Yusoff, a former secretary at the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in charge of the Strategic Management Division.

(MMO) – Rosni was the third witness in today’s trial of former Bersatu Information chief Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan and his money-laundering and corruption charges related to the Jana Wibawa project.

She said when it came to approvals for the Jana Wibawa project and who decided on direct negotiations, orders would come from the PMO.

She said at the time the project was mooted, there were only 50 projects. In time, she said the list grew bigger and they decided to continue to process applications as long as the prime minister had given his approval to the MOF.

“Direct negotiations are direct awards to the companies,” said Rosni when asked what she meant by direct negotiations.

“It was based on a list of names given by the offices of the finance minister. As for pre-qualified tenders, we had around five to six names from the same office and evaluations were done by officers in my department. These names would then be sent to a committee that vetted contractors so that we could pick the companies that had been approved or passed the evaluation process.

“Once we got this list, we would bring it to the finance minister, and once we got the minister’s approval, the decision would be given to the chief secretary of the Ministry of Works (KKR) for further evaluation,” she told the court today.