Open tender concept does not affect Bumiputra agenda: Lim

GEORGE TOWN: The government’s move in introducing the open tender concept does not affect the Bumiputra agenda, according to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (pix).
In fact, he said the measure was seen as opening more opportunities for Bumiputra contractors to secure projects fairly and transparently to all, without being limited to only certain quarters.
“What is practised now is that we are changing to open tender. What is in the Bumiputra agenda is still the same but under open tender. This is unlike the past when one has to obtain the signature of certain parties or favouring people with strong ties. We do not want to see them happening again.
“I hope here there are no effects in open tender including among Class F contractors. As an example, when we practised it in Penang, we could see Bumiputra contractors really working. This is what I want to focus,” he told reporters after presenting a briefing on Budget 2019, here tonight.
He said through open tender, there would be no more direct negotiations or limited tender for certain projects including government projects such those under Perbadanan Nasional Berhad and Majlis Amanah Rakyat.
Meanwhile, Lim who is also Bagan MP, denied the allegations of several Kelantan leaders that Budget 2019 did not give due attention to the development of East Coast states. He said such claims were completely baseless as the allocation provided for each state in Budget 2019 showed an increase and the government was fair without marginalising any state.
“For states, we raised (allocation) from RM27.9 billion to RM31.7 billion for development projects, including in Kelantan. Here not only was the allocation for Penang increased, Kelantan’s allocation was also raised from RM1,214 million to RM1,376 million.
“This clearly shows we did not marginalise any state, we acted fairly even though the state was not in line with the federal government,” he said.
In this regard, he told leaders especially those from opposition parties to stop playing up defamatory sentiments and hatred and to instead provide arguments based on facts and figures. — Bernama