KUALA LUMPUR: Consortium Zenith Beijing Urban Construction Group Sdn Bhd (CZBUCG) beat seven other bidders for a RM6.3bil project in Penang when it received the highest assessment scores out of all shortlisted developers in the open tender process, the Sessions Court heard.
Former Penang executive councillor Datuk Lim Hock Seng, when testifying as a witness in the corruption trial of Lim Guan Eng, said the state exco also agreed to the former chief minister’s proposal to form two separate committees – Technical and Finance – to assess proposals for the project in 2012.
“To my knowledge, CZBUCG was recommended by both committees because the company fulfilled conditions at the request for proposal (RFP) stage,” said Hock Seng, who was previously in charge of public works, utilities and transportation.
“Following that, the state Tender Board certified and agreed to appoint CZBUCG because they scored highest scores in the overall technical and financial assessments.
“This decision was later brought to the state exco meeting for approval,” he said in court yesterday.
Hock Seng said then Penang state secretary Datuk Seri Farizan Darus presented the decision during the meeting on Jan 30, 2013 to consider CZBUCG’s appointment for the project. He added that the state government had held two pre-qualification exercise briefings on Nov 29 and Dec 14, 2011 which were attended by a total of 60 companies prior to the RFP stage.
The sessions were advertised at the state government website on Nov 11 and newspapers on Nov 15, 2011.
Hock Seng said after the briefings, 11 companies sent in their pre-qualification documents and out of that, eight companies were shortlisted to the RFP stage, including CZBUCG, which was formed following a merger between Zenith BUCG, Juteras and Sri Tinggi.
The other seven bidders were China State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd & VST Cemerlang Sdn Bhd, Setia Precast Bhd, ECK Construction Sdn Bhd, Gamuda Bhd, Zambina Wawasan Sdn Bhd, IJM-CRGL Joint Ventures and WCT-Daewoo Joint Ventures.
In his testimony on Wednesday, Hock Seng said Guan Eng told him to contact BUCG representatives in January 2011 and also received Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd senior executive director Datuk Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli’s number from Guan Eng.
A memorandum of understanding was also signed between the Penang state government and BUCG in Putrajaya in April 2011 as a show of interest to build a 5km tunnel at a cost of RM10bil.
Guan Eng, 60, is facing four corruption charges involving the construction of an undersea tunnel and paired roads project in Penang.
For the first amended charge, the Bagan MP is charged with using his position as then Penang chief minister to corruptly receive RM3.3mil to help a company owned by Zarul to secure the undersea tunnel and paired roads project in Penang worth RM6,341,383,702.
The offence was allegedly committed between January 2011 and August 2017 at the Penang chief minister’s office.
For the second amended charge, Guan Eng is charged with soliciting 10% of profits from Zarul to help the company be appointed for the same project.
He was charged with committing the offence near The Gardens Hotel, Lingkaran Syed Putra, Mid Valley City in March 2011, between 12.30am and 2am.
The former finance minister was also charged with two counts of causing two lots of land owned by the Penang government worth RM208.8mil to be disposed of by the developer linked to the undersea tunnel project.
The offences were allegedly committed at the Penang Land and Mines Office, Komtar, on Feb 17, 2015 and March 22, 2017.