Parti Cinta hands ‘evidence’ of graft to MACC over tunnel project
PUTRAJAYA: Parti Cinta Malaysia has called for a corruption probe into the controversial undersea tunnel project in Penang.
Its deputy president Datuk Huan Cheng Guan, together with several party members, arrived at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters with “evidence” of misuse of power related to the project.
“For the past few months, evidence of corruption had emerged. Some were reported in the press, some were surrendered to us, some were gathered through our own investigation.
“We are handing over all these documents to the MACC, and we leave it to them to investigate,” Huan said. Huan declined to disclose the evidence but showed reporters several bundles of “documents”.
“There are a lot of documents in here. I might have to stay here for the next few days,” said Huan.
On Monday, Huan lodged a police report in Penang over the tunnel project.
The report was lodged after the Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications (BNSC) team claimed Penang had awarded the proposed project to an “under-capitalised” company.
BNSC deputy director Datuk Eric See-To claimed that the Penang Tunnel special purpose vehicle (SPV) company which was awarded the project was a relatively new company with a low cash balance and paidup capital in relation to the mega project.
He said the SPV company had a paid-up capital of only RM100,000 when it was awarded the undersea tunnel project in March 2013.
The Works Ministry guidelines make it compulsory for contract bidders to show financial strength of at least 3% of the contract value when conducting a financial evaluation for a Request for Proposal.
Otherwise, the ministry will automatically disqualify the bidder.
See-To noted that the Penang Tunnel and three related road projects cost RM6.3bil and 3% of the cost should be RM190mil.