Extracts from NST 16/07/2005

Privatisation failure’
Jaspal Singh LUMUT, July 15:
The Public Accounts Committee’s verdict on the eight-year privatisation of PSC Naval Dockyard Sdn Bhd is in: the exercise was a gross failure.
Committee chairman Datuk Shahrir Samad said the Government should use any means possible to rescue the ailing dockyard and corporatise it.He also wants the Government to investigate the possibility of criminal breach of trust among senior officials of the company which could have taken operations to such depths of failure. Shahrir said the company’s principal problem was its inability to deliver two high-tech offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) to the navy on time. "The navy, dockyard workers and the contractors/suppliers are definitely not happy with the current leadership and management of the dockyard."Its situation andcondition today expressly shows that the privatisation failed. It is time for the Government to step in and de-privatise the dockyard to revive confidence by all concerned parties," he said after a visit to the dockyard with several committee members today.Shahrir said the company could have been financially viable today had it been prudent and wise in managing the Government contract of more than RM5 billion for six OPVs.But due to late delivery, the Government had to spend an extra RM140 million to keep to the RM1.8 billion price tag agreed upon in 1998.OPVs I and II were supposed to have been delivered to the navy last year but technical problems delayed the handover to this September.Work on the first two OPVs is about 95 per cent complete, OPV III and IV: almost 50 per cent, and OPV V and V1: less than 10 per cent.Shahrir said the eight-year dockyard episode was "a lesson for the Government to be more careful where costly expenditure is concerned".Shahrir said the failure had nothing to do with the competence of dockyard workers or the lower and middle management.The Government had also awarded the company a contract to build 21 more OPVs estimated at more than RM18 billion.Other members of the committee present included deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai and M. Kulasegaran.