Open tender vs negotiated contracts

3 days ago, Free Malaysia Today published Perkasa mob ticked off for ‘un-Malay-like’ behaviour which reported:

The Penang Malays Congress (PMC) today hit out at Perkasa members for causing the ugly Esplanade ruckus during the anti-Lynas peaceful gathering on Sunday.

PMC secretary Mohd Noor Mohd Abdul Kader also condemned Penang Perkasa leader Mohd Rizuad Mohd Azudin for rudely showing a shoe to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng when the DAP leader was leaving the place in his official car.

Mohd Noor criticised the Perkasa mob for being “un-Malay-like” in creating the disturbance at the peaceful gathering, in which two reporters were roughed up.

Now, you know why UMNO considers DAP as its No 1 threat in the coming election – not PAS, not PKR, but DAP which UMNO once dismissed as a small irritant belonging to MCA-Gerakan’s problem area.

UMNO is obviously terrified of DAP’s clear foot in the Malay heartland which I posted in January as UMNO fears DAP beachhead. I then wrote (extracts):

And that’s why the DAP's beachhead in the heartland must be destroyed before it makes further inroads in making the rakyat realize that DAP is truly a multiracial party which can deliver its promises in a C.A.T fashion, and thus successfully secures the invasion of good governance.

Thus, to UMNO’s thinking, "Ceterum autem censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam" (Furthermore, I think Carthage must be destroyed) where it sees DAP as Carthage.

This has not been the first time the Penang Malays Congress (PMC) has spoken out fairly and responsibly as a 'Malaysian-oriented' organization, and thus, indirectly in support of Lim GE and his Penang government.

The reason for such a monstrous wakakaka sea change in Penang's Malay attitude may be read in RPK’s post EPISODE 18: Selangor government still to end negotiated contracts, where wrote as his opening paragraph:

Lim Guan Eng in Penang is already practicing the open tender system, so much so that a number of contracts ended up in the hands of Umno people. I suppose that is what transparency is all about. Contracts go to those who are qualified, not to those who belong to your political party.

Now, can you see the C.A.T doctrine in action where meritocracy (not mediocracy) is the order of the day, every day, in the governance of the Lim government?

By contrast, according to RPK, the Khalid Ibrahim Selangor government still has the UMNO-style 'negotiated' contracts, despite the MB promising that would stop.

The differences between Lim’s open tender system and Khalid’s 'negotiated' contracts are monster-ish wakakaka. The former is consistent with C.A.T where, as RPK pointed out, even UMNO business people can win the contracts on merit, while the latter’s process had been largely .... well, let me put it this way ... NOT open.

RPK acknowledged that, yes, Selangor’s ‘negotiated’ contracts amounted to around RM350 millions, and by comparison to UMNO’s lamentable legacy of such ‘negotiated’ contracts, would be considered as a relatively small sum.

But RPK in true form sneered: Well, if you murder one person you are a murderer. 100 people and you are still a murderer. There is no such thing as a small murderer and a big murderer. Murder is murder.

Little drops of water,
little grains of sand, (sand? wakakaka)
make the murky ocean
and the dodgy land

(with apologies to Julia Carney)

So we have to ask, why is Selangor still using an UMNO-style contractual approach? Why hasn't it dropped it (as promised by Khalid) and return to the universally used ‘open’ tendering system, as Penang has done?

Perhaps the world’s greatest economist etc etc can enlighten us! Perhaps he would tell us, again, 'Khalid is very stubborn'? Wakakaka.