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The Ministry of Education has begun the internal investigation process since last week to identify individuals involved in the issue of contract awarding diesel and solar energy contracts in 369 schools in Sarawak.
The minister, Dr Maszlee Malik, said he had directed ministries to investigate and give full briefing on the problem behind the issue of the contracting, which may create serious non-compliance arrangements.
"Although some ministry officials are trying to correct the situation after realizing the issue of non-compliance with the procurement procedure in the project, the advice is ignored by the parties," he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.
Malaysiakini had previously reported the possibility of deviations in the award of the RM1.25 billion solar hybrid project contract allegedly awarded through contract award directly under the direction of the former states highest leader.
The leader was also charged with instructing the Ministry of Education, in January last year, to appoint a car rental business in Bintulu to carry out the project.
Describing the issue, Maszlee said there were 369 schools in Sarawak who had no fixed electricity supply and only used diesel generators to generate electricity.
Prior to 2017, diesel supply to schools was from some contracted contractors.
He said from Jan 1, 2017, Jepak Holding Sdn Bhd, originally one of the contractors, had contracted to supply electricity to all 369 schools for a period of three years until Dec 31, 2019 with a value of over RM1 billion including Goods and Services Tax ( GST).
According to him, the completion of the project was significantly lower than the target of 51 per cent that should be implemented as of May 15 as a result of the delay of the contractors commencement.
"In short, this project raises the question of why such a huge turnover is not open tender and how he has been given a monopoly without the proper process," he said.
While welcoming the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commissions (MACC) action which carried out preliminary investigations into the issue, Maszlee instructed the Ministry of Education officials to cooperate to assist the commission to bring those guilty to justice.
The MACC in a statement today said it had conducted an initial investigation into the issue in early April after receiving information from the public.
Subsequently, the MACC has taken relevant documents from the Ministry of Education in accordance with the law set out under the MACC Act 2009 to examine whether it contains elements of corruption. -Bernama
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