Was there open tenders? MyEG, Bestinet, Prestariang, Data Sonic,.... companies who have secured contracts where the estimated revenue is millions and/or billions of ringgit?
Are these companies wholly owned companies? partially owned companies? GLCs? How much money will Malaysians be making? the government making?
Are there 'leaks' and misappropriation of funds happening? Is the Minister or the Prime Minister's family and friends getting any benefit?
In my opinion, all these work should be done by the government - not 'outsourced' to private companies....These work matters of 'national security' - issuing visas/passports, etc... These are matters that should never have been outsourced to private companies...
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Auditor General will generally not be AUDITING these companies, and that is dangerous. There must laws in place that makes it mandatory that the Auditor General audits all such government-owned and government-linked companies(GLCs) and the report must be submitted to the Parliament and made available to the public. How much money did the government make through GLCs - how much shares do the government own in this companies?
MP questions billions in contracts ‘quietly’ awarded by Immigration
DAP lawmaker Steven Sim has raised concerns over
major new contracts being given out discreetly by the immigration
department, which is helmed by Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
“From last year onwards, it looks as if massive new contracts were given out to a few closely-linked government contractors.
“These contracts totalled up to billions, and are mostly given
without open tender despite the crisis facing our Immigration
Department.
“Information about these contracts is not available in the public domain.
“Ahmad Zahid had declared at least one of the deals as an ‘official
secret’ which cannot be given even to members of parliament who enquired
in the Dewan Rakyat,” said Sim, who is the Bukit Mertajam MP in a
statement.
He compiled available information on some of the major deals that
have been awarded since January last year, gleaned from media
announcements and government and corporate reports, he said.
Though details are scant, he said, the collated information is enough
to paint a picture that a “strong undercurrent” is taking place in the
past one year in the Immigration Department.
‘Lucrative contracts, bad record’
He said according to the information he has compiled, companies such
as MyEG had been given “lucrative contracts despite bad track record”,
including being guilty of violating the Competition Act 2010.
The company had also broken Immigration laws previously, he said, as
confirmed by the Immigration Department and the auditor general by
illegally allowing the renewal of almost 9,000 foreigners in 2013 and
2014.
Meanwhile, another company, Bestinet, which was suspended in January
last year, has quietly resumed its service, first to industrial workers
and then expanded to domestic helpers since July this year, said Sim.
He also brought up HeiTech Padu Bhd, which he said created and ran
the “now infamous” application Malaysian Immigration System (MyIMMS)
which was allegedly sabotaged over a period of six years, allowing a
number of illegal entries into the country.
Sim said that without a proper post-mortem, a new company,
Prestariang Bhd, has been appointed to completely overhaul the MyIMMS.
It was first announced to be a RM6bn contract but was later divided
into smaller jobs, with the first contract costing RM400m-RM500m.
Passport printing boon
The final example he provided was Datasonic Group Bhd, which he said
was given half-a-billion-ringgit worth of contracts within the first
five months of 2016, including fully taking over the printing of
passports from the government’s National Printing Department (NPD) by
the end of this year.
He added that the current transition period between the change of
vendors was plagued with problems such as shortage of passports all over
the country and new passports being unable to be scanned at the
Immigration e-gates.
“I have been highlighting the terrible state of our Immigration Department.
“On the one hand, our loose border control allows between two and
three million undocumented migrants into this country, while on the
other, the ‘disorganised, haphazard, random and senseless’ migrant
workers policy messed up our own job market,” Sim said.
Despite all this, he said that the Home Ministry helmed by Ahmad
Zahid, who is also the deputy prime minister, has been quietly but
actively awarding new major contracts.
Source: ALIRAN website
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