Warp 7 Mouth

A couple of days ago Humpty Dumpty acted tough with regards to Gerbang Perdana's compensation claim. Gerbang Perdana has been the contractor for the ‘scenic’ bridge. When PM AAB aborted the project, the contractor lodged a compensation claim, which was fair enough.

Initially it was RM100 million, but before you could spell S-A-N-D, the claim tripled to RM360 million.

So Humpty huffed and puffed that he wasn’t going to take any sh*t from the contractor. He said his Ministry will not tolerate all sorts of compensations, and directed Public Works Department director-general Dr Wahid Omar to conduct an investigation.

Gerbang Perdana was given until Tuesday to provide all the documents to justify its claims. Humpty threatened that if Gerbang Perdana failed to produce all the documents by the new deadline, the ministry would submit its proposed quantum to the Prime Minister and Cabinet for approval.

Then glory be, Humpty revealed that his ministry had completed its investigation on the work Gerbang Perdana had done and determined the appropriate quantum for the compensation, which was much less than what they asked for. However, he refused to disclose the amount until it’s brought to the Cabinet.

Mr Senior Rocket Man was right royally pissed off about the non-transparency. He said: “The outrageous demand is matched by the outrage committed by the works minister in refusing to give particulars of Gerbang Perdana’s more than tripling of the original claim.”

Guess what now?

Humpty Dumpty has back flipped on his words and said that Gerbang Perdana will be given a two-month extension to submit documents backing its RM360mil compensation claims. Also, Humpty has directed his Ministry's director-general to meet with them.

I am sure we all know of his Warp 7 (7 times faster-than-his-brain-speed) big mouth, which could accommodate the Titanic if it was still floating today, but I think we have to now assess the thickness of his kevlar-like skin.

Anyway, two months should be more than sufficient to work out some justifications for the RM360 million claim.