Minister: IWH-CREC can bid again if offer is right

SHAH ALAM: Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd (IWH) and China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) can bid for the Bandar Malaysia project again as long as the offer is right.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan said there was no “flip-flop” in the government decision to terminate the share sale agreement for the project with the IWH-CREC consortium.

He insisted the consortium did not fulfil certain conditions.

“The government is consistent with its decision and we are very clear about that. They were given an extension and we stand by the fact that it was clear that the previous consortium understood the government’s position.

“The Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Razak) acted responsibly by legally terminating the contract,” said Abdul Rahman during Gamuda Bhd’s Tunnelling Training Academy graduation ceremony, here, yesterday.

Government-owned TRX City Sdn Bhd said on May 3 its planned sale of a 60 per cent stake in Bandar Malaysia project to IWH-CREC was “null and void with immediate effect”.

It said IWH-CREC had failed to meet the payment obligations under the SSA.

Abdul Rahman said the government had solicited new bids for the project on a 194ha tract within the old airport site in Sungai Besi as the land value had increased.

He added that during the prime minister’s trip to Beijing, he had made it clear that the new consortium could include the previous consortium players as long as the numbers “add up”.

“What the prime minister said in Beijing was that the new bidders (consortium) may include the previous players. There is no issue on that.”

He said the new tender would give Malaysia a better deal.

Meanwhile, Abdul Rahman called for the use of industrialised building system (IBS) to be made mandatory in the construction industry.

He planned to propose this to the Cabinet and hoped it would be implemented in the next three years. “I will be meeting the Works and Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government ministries in two weeks.”

Abdul Rahman said IBS would help standardise the sector with the hiring of locally-trained skilled workers. Beatrice Nita Jay and Soo Wern Jun

PIC BY AIZUDDIN SAAD Visitors checking out the scale model of the planned Bandar Malaysia. The government has solicited new bids for the project as its land value has increased.