The report Costly blunders in awarding contracts , cited as examples the RM120 million Middle Ring Road 2, the RM167 million Matrade building and the RM198 million Navy Recruit Training Centre, all of which required costly repairs. The scandalous details of these and many other similar 'costly blunders' are of course common knowledge in Malaysia (and in many other parts of the world as well), and need not be repeated here.

In the same report, the deputy auditor-general and the second finance minister seem to suggest that a major reason for this deplorable state of affairs is the granting of tenders for government projects to 'contractors who have no expertise whatsoever'. For most discerning Malaysians, this 'revelation' is hardly anything new. So one wonders why make a big song and dance about it? Is it just to titillate the Malaysian public with the suggestion that reforms are underway?

Can we really expect any change? Unfortunately, it does not seem likely because the prevailing paradigm still appears to be that government contracts are given out for the benefit of certain contractors. For example, in the same report, the second finance minister was quoted as saying that the government had allocated RM2.1 billion this year for 40,000 small projects nationwide, which are expected to benefit 32,000 Class F contractors.

Fine, but can the rakyat expect any benefits from these projects? Frankly, there is little cause for optimism, especially since the same minister had earlier lamented that the majority of the 32,000 Class F contractors had yet to 'graduate' to Class A despite being given contracts worth hundreds of thousands of ringgit - one of the reasons being that they sold off their contracts for a quick buck.

On the next day, there was a glimmer of hope that things were looking up in the report Lessons learnt . A minister in the prime minister's department was quoted as saying that, 'We have put in place new initiatives to streamline our procurement process and to ensure projects are delivered efficiently and cost effectively'. And what are these 'new' measures? Ensuring projects are awarded to competent contractors and installing systems to monitor projects on near real-time basis!

One cringes to think of how projects were awarded and monitored all these years, if these basic controls were not in place. Nevertheless, one hopes that the government has finally learnt some lessons from past blunders. At the same time, it is best to remember that transparency in the award of contracts will go a long way in reducing procurement costs and ensuring better results.

On a related issue, the Malaysian Malay Businessmen and Industrialists' Association blamed consultants for delays and cost overruns in government projects. These consultants were said to be 'not incompetent, but just plain corrupt'. This brings to mind the scathing remarks made by the deputy prime minister two years ago against project management consultants (PMCs) which had failed to control costs, designs and the scope of (government) projects, resulting in higher costs.

However, at that time, he seemed to be reluctant to terminate the services of the PMCs because 'many of the PMC firms were set up and owned by bumiputera professionals'. More than two years have passed and we are still plagued by incompetent and or corrupt consultants. Have we truly learnt any lessons from the costly blunders?