This advice from former auditor-general Ambrin Buang comes in the wake of the Dewan Rakyat being told that nearly 200 projects were classified as “sick”.

He said officers must carry out proper due diligence before selecting the contractors, including reviewing the fulfillment of their past projects, Sinar Harian reported.

“When there are sick projects, there are additional costs as the government has to carry out restoration work. This has become a challenge for the government,” he was quoted as saying by the Malay daily.

Recently, economic affairs minister Mustapa Mohamed revealed that out of 6,755 projects under the Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU), 178 were classified as “sick”.

He told the Dewan Rakyat that 92 of the “sick projects” were “being attended to or under intervention”, 41 were already restored, and the rest still in the process of being restored.

According to Mustapa, a project is classified as a “sick” if it had only achieved 20% of its physical progress.

Ambrin also said the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) ought to be implemented immediately to address leakages and corruption in government procurement.