I want to express my utter disgust and disappointment over the recently concluded pre- qualification exercise for the tender carried out by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) for the Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer Project Package 1-3A - Semantan Intake, Pumping Main and Related Works.

My company has been in the business of the construction of intake works and the laying of large diameter pipelines for many years. Yet we have not been pre-qualified to tender for this project.

Is it because that there is a pre-meditated bias against Malaysian contractors? I can't help but think that this is so because as far as technical and financial capabilities are concerned, my company can certainly do the work.

Or is it because my company did not team up with a Japanese company?

Yet in the approved list of pre-qualified contractors, I see IJM Corporation-Nishimatsu Joint Venture. This is really too much.

As in all Jica-funded projects, contractors are required to observe the highest standard of ethics during the procurement and execution of such contracts.

Contracts will not be awarded if a contractor has been found to have engaged in fraudulent and corrupt practices in competing or executing Jica-ODA loan projects.

Are we witnessing a blind spot here or is are there some warped interpretation of Jica's requirements which a simple-minded contractor like me cannot comprehend?

By my book - and I believe this is generally shared by all fair-minded people - a company with long history of alleged corruption should not even be allowed to get the tender documents, much less be pre-qualified.

Their alleged trail of infamy leads us to shady deals for a nuclear station and the Iwate Dam and illegal contributions to prominent politicians in Japan to the drainage tunnel project in Bangkok.

Is this the highest ethical standard Jica is exercising? Jica expects everybody else to observe their standard but it seems for themselves, the exception to the rule applies.

I feel very strongly that my Malaysian company is not on the pre-qualified list whereas a Japanese company with known shady record had been pre-qualified.

So much for integrity and transparency.