PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli today revealed that George Kent, the consortium which was allegedly granted the Ampang LRT extension project tender through the intervention of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, had received abysmal ratings over its capability to carry out the project during the evaluation stage.

In the report, the technical evaluation panel said it had “no evidence or confidence” that George Kent and three other companies which achieved the below-average score could successfully deliver the Ampang line extension project, based on their technical proposals.

NONE According to Rafizi ( right ), the engineering consultant company for the project, HSS Integrated Sdn Bhd, had engaged internationally-renowned consultant Halcrow to evaluate eight potential candidates to carry out the project, including George Kent.

In its evaluation summary, Rafizi told a press conference at the PKR headquarters this morning that Halcrow had found that George Kent had no prior experience in rail projects and the largest project it ever did was a RM40 million piping works project.

This is in contrast to its seven other competitors which all had completed projects ranging in worth from RM458 million to RM5 billion.

azlan “Based on the documents, it is proven that George Kent does not have any experience or expertise that would qualify it to be awarded the (Ampang LRT extension) tender unless it had good relations with Najib,” he said.

Commenting on George Kent’s presentation which was labelled as ‘tenderer T3', Halcrow’s report states: “On questioning the tenderer at their presentation, it was apparent that not only was there lack of understanding or aptitude for the systems integration process, but their proposed integration consultant neither understood the requirements, integration or configuration issues, nor how to manage them”.

“So it is not only that George Kent was incapable, even the consultants that it appointed were incapable,” said Rafizi.

He added that according to the complete evaluation report which he has yet to release, the consultants had initially suggested that George Kent be dropped altogether, but Prasarana had insisted that the consortium be considered for full evaluation.

The report further notes: “In order to meet the required key performance index for this project, there is insufficient detail to provide any confidence that there is any real understanding of the requirements, nor a demonstration of how they would attempt to deliver and manage each stage of this highly complex project”.

NONE Halcrow, in scoring the candidates, placed George Kent third from bottom at a score of 48.91 percent. The lowest score was 42.98 percent while the highest was 83.42 percent.

This, Rafizi said, was far below the average score of all eight candidates at 59.75 percent which would normally be considered the minimum threshold for candidates to be considered.

‘Public safety at stake’

“The fact that it went to a bidder who doesn’t deserve the project is a separate thing, but what we should really press is this is a public safety issue.

“How can you allow a company whose sole experience was manufacturing water meters to take charge and be given a project that would involve millions of commuters,” he said.

NONE Stressing that public safety would be at stake if the project is not properly managed, Rafizi said the party will mobilise around the Ampang area to create awareness on the matter.

“We will make sure people of Ampang, Pandan and Cheras, all those who are affected will get a full briefing about the technical report so that they know the kind of public safety issue that is posed through Najib’s inteference in the project,” he said.

Following the evaluation, a letter was sent by Prasarana to the Finance Ministry’s Procurement Committee (JPMK) which short listed two candidates for the project, namely PDA Consortium and WGET Consortium, with the former eventually being recommended.

However, the committee later decided to grant the tender to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium which was one of the other eight candidates evaluated for the project and had also provided the cheapest tender at RM1.013 billion.

PDA Consortium had offered a tender of RM1.196 billion and WGET Consortium had offered RM1.240 billion, while George Kent’s was RM1.180 billion.

The same letter showed that the bidding by George Kent was done in cooperation with Lion Pacific JV.

NONE On June 22, Business Times reported that George Kent was tipped to get the project and an announcement was due in a few days. This prompted Rafizi to accuse Najib of interfering in the tender process.

Since then, the winner of the tender has yet to be announced.

Najib has since responded to the claim, stating that the tender process was “properly” done but did not deny nor admit to allegations that he had intervened on behalf of George Kent.

Rafizi insisted today that he had “black and white” evidence to prove that the project has indeed been granted to the George Kent consortium, but will only produce the evidence after the premier “comes clean” on the matter.

George Kent is controlled by Tan Kay Hock, the chairperson and chief executive of Johan Holdings Bhd.

Before Najib took over the premiership, MCA-owned The Star had in December 2008 identified Tan as Najib’s close associate and golfing buddy. Both of them have known each other for a long time.

A call was put to George Kent (Malaysia) Bhd  for comment but an official who refused to identify himself declined to comment.

“No, no, no, no... We have no comment,” he said.

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