Minister for Transport Datuk Seri Lee Kim Shin has refuted claims made by Violet Yong (DAP – Pending) concerning the allocation of a RM122,441,222 contract by Sarawak Metro to a joint venture company.
Lee said the matter was on the contract package related to the 55 units of hydrogen fuel cell feeder buses, which was awarded by Sarawak Metro Sdn Bhd to a joint venture company consisting of SKS Coachbuilders Sdn Bhd and Sun Credit Sdn Bhd.
He explained that the awarded contract includes, among other components, the Chassis, Bus System, and Bus Body, totalling RM81,753,375, which accounts for 66.77 per cent of the overall amount, equating to RM1,486,425 per bus unit.
“The other items in the contract package are: preliminaries and general, training, documentation which includes the training manuals, full scope maintenance services during the warranty period, 36 months full scope maintenance services after the warranty period, tools, supply of major components swing units, design for customisation and tailor-made specifications; and the provisional sum which includes spare parts and consumable items after the warranty period, including relevant taxes and duties, amounting to a total of RM 40,687,847 (33 per cent of the overall cost),” said Lee during his ministerial winding up speech today.
He also refuted the claims that SKS Coachbuilders Sdn Bhd, a West Malaysia company has teamed up with Sun Credit Sdn Bhd, a local company to meet the tender requirements set by Sarawak Metro.
“For this tender exercise, the participation of a Sarawak local partner was not listed as a requirement,” he said.
He also said that the contract was awarded to the JV company between SKS Coachbuilders Sdn Bhd and Sun Credit Sdn Bhd, where SKS Coachbuilders is the lead partner, with a 70 per cent equity in the JV company while the remaining 30 per cent is owned by Sun Credit Sdn Bhd.
“In law, the joint venture partners would be jointly and severally liable for the due performance of the contract,” he added.
With regard to the allegation of misconduct in the tender evaluation process, Lee revealed that none of the six bidders met the profit requirements for the years 2020 to 2022, primarily due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Thus, the evaluation committee decided to seek approval from the Tender Approval Committee (TAC) to waive the above requirement based on the following reasons, first, based on analysis, the year 2020 to 2022 was during the COVID-19 pandemic period; hence, all tenderers were facing financial losses.
“Secondly, this package tender has been called for the 2nd time, ie. retender; and third if it goes through another retender exercise, it will yield the same results and cause further delay to the project timeline.
“Upon approval by the TAC, the evaluation committee proceeded to evaluate the tender submissions by all tenderers. After going through detailed and comprehensive evaluation exercise, the evaluation committee proposed to the Tender Approval Committee to award this contract to SKS Coachbuilders Sdn Bhd & Sun Credit Sdn Bhd Joint Venture (JV).
“This JV company offered the lowest commercial proposal amongst all the qualified bidders. The 2nd lowest qualified bid offered 34% higher and the highest qualified bid offered 119% higher; and it is noted that SKS Coachbuilders Sdn. Bhd., which is the lead partner in the JV company, has a good financial standing with sufficient credit facilities to execute this contract,” he said.
