New law to plug govt procurement leakages

KUALA LUMPUR: A Bill related to contract governance will be tabled in Parliament as a guide for procedures on the procurement and award of contracts, says Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (pic).

He said the proposed Bill is an extension of existing Treasury governance and regulations.

“This is important to avoid leakages, abuse of power and also to provide guidelines, not for the specifications of a service, product or work, but from the aspect of price and time frame and the quality of services or goods supplied,” he said.

Ahmad Zahid said the enactment of the law is crucial to curbing leakages due to corruption, excessive profits or other issues.

“The existing one is only in the form of an instruction from the Treasury.

“More importantly, once it is enacted, all governance and management will be bound by the law.

“If there are some elements of violation, leakage and abuse of power, offenders will be punished according to the law,” he told reporters after appearing as a guest on RTM’s TV1’s Selamat Pagi Malaysia as well as on the Nasional FM’s programme in Angkasapuri here yesterday.

Regarding the move by some government-linked companies (GLCs) and private companies to take over technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions as outlined in Budget 2023, Ahmad Zahid said this does not require the private sector to build new training centres but instead use existing facilities and provisions.

At the same time, he said this would allow TVET courses to be tailor-made to the workforce in these companies.

He added that this is important because Malaysia’s labour market needs skilled and highly-skilled workers so that the country could reduce its reliance on foreign workers.

On a separate issue, he said Malaysia needs to find ways to switch from scrap rubber (cup lump) to improve latex production.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also Rural and Regional Development Minister, said this is because Malaysia still imported about 80% of the latex it needed at a cost of around RM3bil.

“Malaysia is the world’s largest rubber producer and a glove-producing country, with latex as the primary material – but why do we have to import latex?

“Even though it involves a lot of work and there is a lack of manpower as most rubber tappers are aged around 60 to 70, we need to find ways to produce (more) latex because, in Malaysia, there are only seven depots for latex production,” he said.