‘Govt to implement new model for public-private partnership projects’

KUALA LUMPUR: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the government will implement a new public-private partnership (PPP) model that incorporates open tenders.

“This will ensure that government projects are awarded to contractors who can deliver the best outcome by getting the best value for money.

“This is one of the alternatives adopted by my ministry to ensure that projects are carried out instead of taking the extreme approach of cancelling them altogether.”

He said open tender for PPP would benefit the public.

“This new open tender PPP will be anchored on the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability.”

Lim said the previous administration used the off-budget financing trick to hide government expenditure.

“In a recent review process by the ministry, 14 of 17 PPP projects were found to have been directly negotiated by the previous administration without undergoing the open tender process.

“Most of them were land swap projects. This means the contractor would carry out government projects such as building affordable housing, schools, police stations, fire stations and army camps, and get parcels of government land in return instead of cash.”

Lim said the contractors negotiated directly with the government over the price of the project and value of the government land.

“Such direct negotiation not only perverts the model of PPP into a privatisation exercise or crony capitalism but also puts the Federal Government in deep debt. The real value of the government land is invariably underpriced while the cost of the public project is overpriced,” he added.