Money Does Grow on Trees

Older readers will be familiar with this saying, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Our elders used to say this when one wasted anything like food or on unnecessary frivolities.

However nowadays it appears that money does grow on trees. So the PAC is going through the reasons why the overhead highway has ballooned from a RM30m temporary road to RM100m up again to RM250m and now the astronomical sum of RM480m for an eight-lane flyover on account of “related works such as connecting roads and amenities”.

Works ministry officials announced all these numbers to the press during the past months so the question that should be asked is why were all these related works not taken into account before any such numbers were issued? Was the Works Ministry not aware that the CIQ would need connecting roads?

Those connecting roads would have been built into the original contract. The only difference now is that instead of the bridge we have an overhead flyover.

Given my suspicious bent plus the fact that no open tenders were called, it appears that favoured contractors can be given much leeway to massage numbers to accommodate various needs.

The Auditor-General’s office should be tasked to vet the numbers but given the usual non-action after their annual horror reports, we should not hold our collective breath.

graphics: http://www.loans-guidebook.com/loans-and-mortgages.jpg