After raising the issue of three state projects that were awarded without open tenders, Kedah Gerakan today claimed that another project was not given out via an open tender as promised by the opposition.

The project highlighted by Gerakan was the building of Kolej Universiti Insaniah's (Kuin) permanent campus in Kuala Ketil at a cost of RM330 million and owned by the Kedah state government.

Kedah Gerakan Youth Chief Tan Keng Liang said the project was implemented by a wholly owned subsidiary of Bina Darulaman Berhad (BDB) (in which the Kedah State Development Corporation has a 55 percent stake), Kedah Sato Sdn Bhd, but the company then appointed other companies to carry out construction works.

He said in September 2009, the state government had appointed Kedah Sato to build a permanent campus for Kuin at a cost of RM330 million.

"In 2010, Kedah Sato took an RM330 million loan from Bank Islam (Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad) to finance the project and during the same year it appointed IJM Construction Sdn Bhd to build the campus.

"The appointment of IJM Construction by Kedah Sato was done without an open tender and the question here is why wasn't there an open tender, where according to Pakatan Rakyat's orange book, they were supposed to use open tenders, especially for large projects," he told a press conference here.

Four large projects implemented

Tan said other than the Kuin campus project, three other state projects awarded without calling for open tender, had been revealed, namely the Aman Central Shopping Centre (RM500 million), Amansuri Residences project (RM109 million) and the Sungai Limau Hydrocarbon Hub (SULIHH) project (RM36 billion).

"I could not believe that in the four years that Pakatan Rakyat has ruled in Kedah, they have carried out four large projects with a total value of nearly RM36.939 billion and all of them without an open tender.

Tn also said that the Kedah Gerakan Youth had sent a memorandum to Oposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim to answer all the issues raised by the party regarding the open tender but has yet to receive any response from him.

- Bernama