Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd (Prasarana) will brief prospective contractors on the Klang Valley Mass Rail Transit project on Tuesday.

This follows a revision of the pre-qualification criteria which now allows contractors to form joint-ventures (JV) or consortiums among local companies.

The briefing will take place on Tuesday at the Petaling Jaya City Council civic centre at 11am.

NONE "The briefing will cover all areas in regards to the pre-qualification exercise and Prasarana hopes that all interested contractors could attend the briefing," said Prasarana group director, project development division, Zulkifli Mohd Yusoff ( left )  said in a statement today.

On May 20, Prasarana announced that the revised pre-qualification covers the elevated civil works, stations and depots work construction packages for the MRT project.

The JV and consortium cannot exceed more than three companies and each contractor will be only allowed to submit a maximum two applications for JV or consortium.

The revision follows claims by Malay rights pressure group Perkasa, Malay Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (MCCM) and Malay Contractors Association that small Malay contractors were being left out in the lucrative project.

'Prasarana sensitive to all'

The Malay Contractors Association has asked Prasarana for 30 percent of the contracts while MCCM has offered to take over the entire project because bumiputera companies are failing to win MRT tenders.

The MCCM is blaming Prasarana for setting unfair conditions such barring bidders from teaming up with other companies and having a paid-up capital of at least RM10 million.

According to MCCM, the bid conditions meant that only 37 out of 16,000 members of the Malay Contractors Association would qualify for the bidding of Malaysia's costliest ever infrastructure project.

In the Prasarana statement today, the company's group managing director Shahril Mokhtar admitted that the revision was conducted in view of "feedback" from various parties including NGOs.

"Prasarana has always been sensitive to all constructive views for our projects and the stand is reflected against in this decision, which was made purely based on the need to get more contractors to participate and the need to make the bidding for the MRT project more competitive," he said.