Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is conspicuously silent since the 1MDB-linked lawsuit by the US Department of Justice.
However, in beneath the silence, something is brewing in the Immigration Department helmed by him who is also the Home Minister.
From last year onwards, it looked as if massive new contracts were given out to a few closely-linked government contractors. These contracts totalled up to billions, and are mostly given without open tender despite the crisis facing our Immigration Department.
Information about these contracts are not available in the public domain. Zahid Hamidi had declared at least one of the deals as “official secret” which cannot be given even to Members of Parliament who enquired in the Dewan Rakyat. (Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/home-ministry-stamps-osa-on-bangladesh-foreign-worker-contract).
Over the last few months, I have compiled information on some of the major deals via media announcements and government as well as corporate reports. Details are scant but this is enough to give us an idea that a strong undercurrent is taking place in the past one year in the DPM’s Immigration Department.
Companies such as MyEG were given lucrative contracts despite bad track record, including being guilty of violating the Competition Act 2010 and worse, breaking immigration laws as confirmed by both the Immigration Department and the Auditor General by illegally allowing the renewal of almost 9,000 foreigners in 2013 and 2014 alone.
Bestinet’s service which was suspended in January 2015 was quietly resumed first to industrial workers but since July 2016 it was expanded to domestic helpers.
HeiTech Padu of course created and runs the now infamous MyIMMS system which was allegedly sabotaged over a period of six (6) years allowing untold number of illegal entries into Malaysia.
Without proper post-mortem, a new company Prestariang has been appointed to completely overhaul the MyIMMS. It was first announced to be an RM6 billion contract but was later on divided into smaller jobs; the first contract costing RM400-500 million.
Within the first five (5) months of 2016, Datasonic was given half a billion ringgit worth of contract, including to take over the printing of passport fully from government printer by the end of this year. The current transition period between the change of vendors is plagued with problems such as shortage of passport all over the country and new passports being unable to scan at the immigration e-gates.
Immigration Crisis not resolved
I have been highlighting the terrible state of our Immigration Department. On one hand, our loose border control allows between 2-3 million undocumented migrants into this country, while on the other hand, the “disorganised, haphazard, random and senseless” migrant workers policy messed up our own job market. We are now for second consecutive years rated Tier 2 Watch List in the US Trafficking in Persons Report for bad record in fighting human trafficking, risking falling back to Tier 3.
Insiders syndicate ensured that human trafficking remained rampant and undetected while the Malaysian Migrant Industrial Complex, an exclusive and lucrative club of a handful of private contractors supplying services to the Immigration Department continues to rake billions of ringgit in profit at the expense of rational economic and job policies.
Despite all these, the Home Ministry has been quietly but actively awarding new major contracts.
Is the DPM preparing his own accession to replace Najib?
One cannot help but wonder if all these are part of a deliberate plot to prepare the way for Zahid Hamidi to replace his boss, Najib Razak?
We do not know how many more big amount contracts were given out by the Home Ministry, but are these multi billion ringgit deals in the last one year an act by Brutus sharpening his dagger?