KUALA LUMPUR - A list of 101 deals worth RM6.6 billion (S$2.16 billion) released on Wednesday (Aug 26) that was supposed to show Malaysia's former Pakatan Harapan (PH) government had awarded them without open tender has instead revealed the shortcomings of member parties in the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration.
The list was issued after opposition figures challenged Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz to back his claim in Parliament that the controversial practice of direct negotiations had continued under PH's 22-month old administration.
However, the bulk of the contracts appear to be legacy projects from the Umno-led Barisan Nasional's (BN) time in power, before its shock loss to PH at the May 2018 election. BN and most parties that have since left the coalition are now part of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's PN government.
Two-thirds of the sum was for the Klang Valley Double Track Phase 2 (KVDT2) upgrade which was initially directly awarded to Dhaya Maju LTAT two days before Parliament was dissolved in 2018.
PH had cancelled the RM5.3 billion deal before re-awarding it to Dhaya Maju LTAT - a joint venture involving the Armed Forces pension fund - last year at a reduced cost of RM4.5 billion.
The Defence Ministry under PH is responsible for RM901 million in direct tenders largely for maintenance of aircraft that went to Airod - an outfit initially set up in 1975 by the air force to support its own fleet - and Airbus, which was given a RM223 million contract to service the A400M military transport plane that the European company manufactures.
Meanwhile, the Home Ministry had agreed a RM271 million extension with Datasonic for the supply of passport pages and a RM151 million deal for police network services with state telecoms firm Telekom Malaysia.
Telekom also won a RM94 million contract as the sole provider for emergency response services from the Multimedia and Communications Ministry, which also directly negotiated a RM254 million deal with MYTV - controlled by politically-linked tycoon Syed Mokhtar Albukhary - for the digitisation of television services that began during BN's rule.
Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, the government agency in charge of overseeing the use of the Malay language, was also directly awarded a RM70 million textbook supply contract from the Education Ministry.
Datuk Seri Zafrul said in a statement on Wednesday that he was releasing the list of direct awards under PH "to support the policy of good governance that ensures transparency in administration" as "in recent days, requests have been made for information on the 101 projects approved via direct negotiations".
The issue had surfaced in Parliament on Monday when the Finance Minister was responding to queries about direct awards without open tender during the coronavirus pandemic which he said was necessary due to the urgent situation.
He added that PH had also engaged in direct negotiations, a claim that caused an uproar as the coalition had promised to do away with the practice in its manifesto ahead of the 2018 election.
This resulted in the previous premier Mahathir Mohamad demanding that the Treasury make public full details of the allegation, while the former PH government's finance minister Lim Guan Eng said that direct deals under both BN and PN should also be looked into.
Malaysia's anti-corruption commission has also said it will be studying the matter.
Responding to the list's revelations late Wednesday, Lim said he would hold a press conference Thursday morning to "expose this evil tactic". "This is a big lie by the PN Finance Minister," he said on Twitter.
