How to Prevent Corruption Even in an Open Competitive Tender?

After careful thinking, I regretted that I have posted my article to criticise the Pakatan Harapan government for terminating the MRT contracts undertaken by MMC Gamuda Joint venture. The value of the two contracts are RM8.2 billion and RM15.47 billion.

A few months before I posted the above article, I wrote and posted my article namely “Follow the World Bank’s Guidelines in calling open tender to prevent corruption”. If the previous BN government wanted to accept bribes, the World Bank’s guidelines could not prevent corruption.

When any contract is worth several billion Ringgit, the contractor can spare several hundreds of RM millions to bribe the officials who have the power to award the contract.

Here are seven ways to prevent corruption:

1. The Pakatan Harapan Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir must appoint honest ministers who must appoint honest people on the tender board to valuate tenders and the minister in charge must always supervise the tender process to prevent corruption.
2. Split the whole project into smaller contracts, so that more contractors can qualify to tender. If only a few contractors are invited to tender, it is easier for the few contractors to collude or come to a secret understanding.
3. The Minister must not allow the official in charge to invite a few of his ‘kaki’ or friends to tender. Always publish in the newspapers to invite contractors to prequalify to submit tender.
4. If all the contractors are prequalified to tender, only the cheapest tender should be given the contract.
5. All tenders must be open and publish the prices of each contractor to show that the cheapest contractor is awarded the contract.
6. Never allow the official to invite contractors to submit their proposals for any project because each contractor would have his own proposal. The tender committee cannot compare the price of an apple with a pineapple.
7. Always appoint an engineering consultant who has the necessary knowledge and experience in this type of project to put up the design and specifications for all the prequalified contractors to tender. If all the contractors are prequalified, the cheapest contract should be given the contract.

Remember honesty is the best policy.

Koon Yew Yin