Sarawak DAP has expressed concern that the construction of the RM150 million Samarahan Bridge will be given to a crony company through an ‘invited tender’ process, as was done in three other multi-million ringgit projects.

“The Finance Ministry should not award the proposed bridge project to a crony company through an ‘invited tender’ process, but award it by the ‘open tender’ process,” Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen said.

Chong ( right ) said this in reference to an advertisement in local newspapers last Saturday on the proposed bridge.

The Finance Ministry has in the past withdrawn the ‘open tender’ process after scores of applications had been received from contractors and changed it to an ‘invited tender’ process, where only 10 listed crony companies are invited to tender, he said.

“What I would like to stress here is that after advertising the project through open tender, the Finance Ministry should not secretly convert it into invited tender, where only 10 crony companies are invited.

“Given the suspicious track record of these Public Works Department (PWD) projects, the DAP will be monitoring the tender process of this bridge closely.

“We do not want another fourth incident of ‘open tender’ magically becoming ‘invited tender’ again by the Ministry of Finance and PWD,” Chong, who is assemblyperson for Kota Sentosa and the the MP for Bandar Kuching, told a press conference yesterday.

“Previously, there were three open tender projects advertised by PWD in most of the major local newspapers. Many contractors submitted their tender documents, but the Ministry of Finance surreptitiously converted the open tender to invited tender and excluded the non-cronies.

“Only 10 contractors, who are relatives of those in the government, were invited to take part in the tender,” claimed Chong.

The three projects, he said, are the construction and completion of Package B of Poi/Ngemah/Temalat/Song/Kapit road, and another package under the same road project. Each of these projects cost about RM100 million.

Ten contractors had submitted for the two projects and six of them are related to some of the Sarawak state ministers.

The third project was the construction and completion of the RM100 million Kanowit Bridge.

Out of 10 invited contractors for the bridge, three companies were either newly formed companies or had a paid-up capital of only RM500,000 to do a project worth RM100 million.

“This is most ridiculous as the backgrounds of the companies are questionable,” Chong said, pointing out that he had written to the ministry to seek an explanation and gave the ministry 30 days to respond.