PWD Tender Board gets tough

by Peter Sibon, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on July 19, 2012, Thursday

ROAD PROJECT INSPECTION: Manyin (wearing cowboy hat) inspecting a section of the Biawak Road which is still under construction in the presence of Ranum (left), Ting (third right) and John David (second right).

LUNDU: The Public Works Department (PWD) Tender Board will screen all potential contractors before awarding any project in future, said Minister of Infrastructure Development and Communications Dato Sri Michael Manyin.

This stringent procedure includes tracing the track records of bidders over the last five years.

“Performances of contractors will be screened by the PWD Tender Board thoroughly before they make a decision on any project. So, those who have good records will definitely have good marks.

“What this means is that if a contractor has failed in any project, or even have projek sakit (sick project), their failures will definitely be taken into account as well.

“We are doing this so that all projects are implemented smoothly. If not the people would be the victims,” Manyin told reporters after making a site visit to have a look at the upgrading work on the 11km Biawak Road near here yesterday.

He said PWD also wanted every single project to be implemented on time.

On errant contractors, Manyin said personally he preferred that they be blacklisted and the doors closed on them.

“But I can’t implement that (blacklisting) because I am not a member of the Tender Board.”

He said this with reference to the upgrading of Biawak Road which stalled since last year.

Since early this year, the project costing RM29.5 million has been taken over by PWD.

“Work on the project is now about 40 per cent completed. We are confident that it would be completed by the end of this year.”

Upgrading of Biawak Road started in 2009, and was supposed to be completed by the end of last year. When completed, the road would provide a smoother ride to the Biawak Customs Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex which was completed recently.

On the issue of unpaid sub-contractors by the former main contractor, Manyin said it was no longer a PWD issue.

“We sympathise with the sub-contractors. But PWD cannot do anything because it is between them and the (former) main contractor.”

The seven unpaid sub-contractors brought up their grievances for not getting paid for work completed some 18 months ago with The Borneo Post on Monday.

They hit a brick wall everywhere they went to seek answers as to why they were still not paid for the work done.

The seven are Nucifera Enterprise, Salako Enterprise, Hung Wee Transport Company, Soon Yew Transport, Yakin General Contractor and Transport, Foh Shin Fatt Construction and Transport and Mohd Hazlee Chai Abdullah.

Meanwhile, Opar assemblyman Ranum Mina said he was thankful that the PWD was taking the project seriously as the people had made a lot of complaints to him.

“Initially, many land owners were not happy about the compensation. But now that the issue has been resolved, they want the project to be completed soon.”

Accompanying Manyin for the site visit yesterday were a political secretary to the chief minister John David Nyauh, his (Manyin) private secretary Alexander Ganyang, technical advisor to the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Communications Chan Fang Sin and PWD Southern Region project manager Roland Ting.

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