Government Tenders Related Topics

[globalcookie]

Happened to read an interview by barathi of CNA with MP Zainal

Zainal Sapari: In my recent blog, I did share my thoughts on outsourcing. I think as a business model, outsourcing is not bad. In fact outsourcing is good because it allows a company to focus on their core business, and let others support them in terms of non-core or essential services. And I think the Government took that particular approach.

However, I was a bit disappointed in the sense that we should outsource responsibly. We should move away from cheap sourcing. When we cheap source, while we can shout that there is a cost saving, normally these cost savings come about because the workers were not paid adequately or their salaries are depressed

Bharati Jagdish: If the Government itself is running a best sourcing campaign and you say should be taking the lead in offering fair contracts, why aren’t all Government agencies doing this? What do you think is the missing link here?

Zainal Sapari: I think in a general the top management, the ministers, they are in favour of best sourcing. I've not met any of the political leaders who are against best sourcing. But I think it’s really downstream, down to the procurement offices. Sometimes, due to ignorance, they might include certain clauses which are not fair, which are not reasonable, to make their work easier, to make their work lighter.

And I think one area that the Government could start is really in terms of training for these procurement officers. The Government could give them sample contracts with fair and reasonable clauses. Some of these procurement officers are not experts in cleaning, security, and they might not know that these contracts are not fair and reasonable.

For example, the school that requested for unlimited changes, I can understand why, because you do not want to be constrained by a service provider telling you, you can only have three changes, and that's it. But they have to learn. Any change that you make, there is a cost to it.

Bharati Jagdish: The problem is some service providers accept these unfair terms and you’ve said it’s because they think some business is better than no business. Service buyers, of course, take advantage and this ultimately ruins it for the companies that want to do the right thing by their workers. Service buyers need to understand that they need to be willing to pay more and in spite of legislation in place now where a company’s license is tied to them meeting the conditions of the Progressive Wage Model, they can get around it with one-sided contracts and by not renewing contracts. So what can you do to compel them?

Zainal Sapari: Changing mindsets is never easy. But I always believe about finding the tipping point where people begin to realise that they cannot continue with the way things are.*

Above is an extract,not in full,from below url.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobil...y/2575046.html

On one hand, it is encouraging he is speaking up on the need to look into wage paid by contractors when evaluating Tenders, it didn't seems to look closely,how real cost are in relation to quoted price.

I can only hope the gov looks at Tenders firstly,at COMPETENCY of the tenderer for the project and secondly, study if they can still generate a little PROFIT in delivering their job.l competently.