GEORGE TOWN: Penang Government must stop denying that it has grossly overpaid the consulting fees for the three paired roads project, a component of the RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel.
Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications (BNSC) deputy director Datuk Eric See-To Choong also asked the state government to study the Registration of Engineers Act (REA) 1967 to determine what engineering services scope were within the scale of fees.
This is after State Local Government Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow had said it had not overpaid the consultants in the project, but had merely paid “about 17 per cent” more. He had said it was within the REA Act.
"We also advise the state government to take heed of the findings of the Board of Engineers (BEM) as well as the works minister before giving inaccurate and invalid excuses over the 400 per cent overpriced fees paid for the detailed design of the three roads," Choong said in a press statement issued today.
The issue cropped up after BNSC director and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan said Penang had paid four times higher than the gazetted scale of fees for consultation set by the BEM.
Rahman also gave Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng one week to come out with an explanation, adding that if his answer was unjustifiable or if he remained silent on the issue, the matter would be escalated to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the police after Hari Raya.
The BNSC team had however rejected the Penang government's explanation over the alleged overpayment of consultancy fees for the construction of three roads in the state.
BNSC deputy director Datuk Eric See-To said this was after the team conducted a preliminary assessment of the reasons given by Chow, who had claimed that the state overpaid the projects' consultation fees by 17.6 per cent, and not 400 per cent as previously alleged by BNSC.
On Saturday, Chow said reiterated it did not pay more than usual but and BNSC was wrong by calculating the fees for three paired roads alone. He had said the fees must be seen as a whole, i.e. the undersea tunnel and three paired roads as it was awarded as one package.