I refer to the letter Water project: Shocking Nishimatsu pre- qualified .

I think most people in the know would welcome an open tender system for all government procurement as recently announced by the prime minister. Too many projects have been given to certain well-connected persons through the much-abused direct negotiation system.

But then this is not a new idea. The previous prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also declared the open tender system to be government policy when he first assumed office but nothing much came out of that.

I hope Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak will be more resolute to implement this open tender system.

What then is an open tender system? This is not as obvious as it seems because being open means different things to different people. But the basic threads of this system are somewhat like this:

1. Eligibility of Tenderers

• Tenderers must have experience and expertise in constructing similar projects.

• Tenderers must have strong financial support from banks.

• Tenderers must not have litigation issues against the government.

• Tenderers' track record must show projects were completed on time.

• Tenderer must not be smeared by allegations of corrupt or fraudulent practices.

2. Tendering Process

• Tenders submitted must comply with all the requirements of the Bid Documents

• Tenderers may submit alternative tender proposals complete with drawings and calculations endorsed by a professional engineer provided they first submit compliant bids based on the original engineer's design.

• The basis for the evaluation of the tender must be equally applied to all short-listed tenderers.

3. Award of Tender

• The award of tender is the prerogative of the employer/government. However, fairness in the award process must be seen such that any tenderer would not have any legitimate grounds to protest or feel aggrieved.

Unless the tender process is transparent, there will always be contentious issues among the tenderers. Unsuccessful tenderers may voice dissatisfaction, alleging manipulation of tenders and this will tarnish image of the government.

The many articles in the local print and online newspapers on the transparency of the bidding of the Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Project is a case in point.

These reports purport that there were several fundamental breaches of the tender conditions by the lowest bidder and in spite of the indictment of top officials of one of their partners, the lowest bidder was still being considered for award of the contract.

The government seem oblivious to such violations of tender conditions and appears to agree with Jica, the Japanese loan agency, to award or reward the perpetrators of such breaches the biggest construction contract at the moment.

Surely this is not the open tender system the government has envisaged. Perhaps the government has other considerations, namely the fear that Jica may not offer new loans to Malaysia.

Whatever it is, this situation is grossly unfair to the other tenderers and is bound to bring cynical smirks on the faces of members of the public who have read these reports.

The government has got to come clean on this issue before proceeding to implement development projects via the open tender system.

If this perception of manipulation is not corrected now, whatever good the government may have done later will be negated by this project's perceived manipulation.

The open tender system must be seen to be transparent and every action in the process made accountable. Unless this is done, the public will see the entire tender process as being manipulated to award contracts to well-connected ‘friends' of the government.