JUST as we were beginning to feel that the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) was gaining traction and firing on all cylinders, news has surfaced alleging sabotage by government officials handling the award with a view to frustrating the POS Malaysia/Fuelsubs House Sdn Bhd consortium, the front runner, from walking away with the contract to manage the proposed fuel subsidy rationalisation programme.
The call by some in the cabinet to treat the proposals as just another tender submission is to miss the point. Unlike other tender documents submitted for the supply of goods and services, such as long-term maintenance contracts based on meeting technical specifications laid down by the client, the proposals to manage the fuel subsidy programme are a different kettle of fish.
Each represents an original private-sector initiative, and the intellectual property rights of each owner of the proposals must be respected.
EPU is an important agency of government it has to behave like Caesar’s wife, completely above suspicion. The GTP will come to naught if EPU is seen as less than ethical in its conduct of public affairs.
It is disingenuous to suggest that the proposals should not be negotiated directly as the government stands to be accused of favouritism and cronyism.
In the nature of things, some procurement exercises, such as those involving technical or business proposals we are now discussing, lend themselves more readily to direct negotiations.
What is important is that the procedures to award a contract must be scrupulously observed to ensure that conflicts of interest are identified early and dealt with appropriately.
Open tenders are fine for certain types of public procurement. Some open tenders are more respected in the breach than in the observance.
It is not an open tender when a chief minister or menteri besar sits in on an award discussion.
It is back to the spirit of honesty and integrity when we deal with the tender process.
I would like to ask the young EPU minister if it is fair to an entrepreneur who has come up with an honest solution to save the government billions of taxpayers’ money, with the government concurring at all the council and committee stages and that it is the best proposal and suddenly to find that his idea is taken from him and auctioned to the highest bidder?
As a further example of an attempt to discredit the promoters of Fuelsubs, hidden hands are working overtime to show their political affiliations.
The civil service as a whole, and EPU in particular, has an important role to play in restoring public confidence in the government transformation efforts by adopting ethical public service behaviour.
Let us hope that in awarding the fuel subsidy contract, public interest is not set aside and public trust is not compromised.