by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, 28th March 1982:
DAP calls on the NBI to investigate into irregularities and malpractices in the tendering and purchase of clock-in machines which had been plagued with delays, inefficiencies and over-coasts
When the 2M leadership of Dr. Mahathir Mohamed and Datuk Musa Hitam took over the government, they announced that they want a ‘clean, efficient and smooth’ administration.
In order to put such a BCL ’Berseh, Cekap dan Licin’ Government into effect, they introduced the clock-in and clock-out system to instil efficiency in the civil service.
Unfortunately, the implementation of such a clock-in system for all government departments has highlighted the lack of a administration which is clean, efficient and smooth.
The clock-in exercise was supposed to have started for all departments last Monday on March 22, but suddenly it was again postposned, for a fourth time.
The exercise was originally to have been implemented in all government departments on January 1, but was extended to Feb.1 and then to Feb. 14 to allow time for the departments to be supplied with the clock-in machines.
On March 9, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, told the Dewan Rakyat that the Government would implement the clock-in system for all departments by the end of the month. But now the deadline of April 1 is only for Federal Territory while no deadline has been fixed for country-wide departments.
A Treasury official had explained that the postponement was due to delays in the supply of the clocks.
In January, a Treasury official had said that the government had granted tenders to supply 2,150 units of clock-in machines for government offices to two firms, namely Mak Iti Sdn. Bhd and Syarikat Dicklins. No delay was expected in implementing the system as the machines could be installed in a day.
Why then the repeated delays in the installation of the clock-in machines and the implementation of the system for a government whose trademark is to be Cekap, Licin and Bersih?
I call on the National Bureau of Investigations to inquire into the entire award of the tender of the clock-in machines as to whether the irregularities in the tender exercise had caused the delays and also over-costs.
According the government announcements, the clock-in machines will cost $1,970 each, but my information is that out of the score tenders, there are tenders for as low as $1,670 each, which means a saving of $300 per machine, working to a total saving of $645,000.
Furthermore, the bulk of the tender of 2,150 machines had been awarded for a new untested machine by a company which has little experience in installing the machines.
It would be most ironical if the clock-in machines, which is symbolise the ‘clean, efficient and smooth’ administration of the government become the very symbol of its lack of cleanliness, efficiency and smoothness. The Treasury should publicly explain the entire tender exercise, as to how many tendered, the respective tendered prices, the reason for the final choice, and the exact reason for the repeated postponements for the implementation of the system. It would appear that the MAMPU must itself be overhauled first, before the civil service could be overhauled.