C4 said there is an urgent need to reform emergency procurement procedures to avoid repeated wastage of public funds and to address its vulnerability to corruption and abuse.
“Our key recommendations include outlining the limits of ‘emergency procurements’ in the proposed Government Procurement Act while also introducing controls through some form of parliamentary oversight into related expenditure,” it said in a statement.
This may take place through a bipartisan parliamentary committee empowered to approve emergency procurements in the absence of full parliamentary sittings, C4 added.
The proposed Government Procurement Act is expected to be tabled in Parliament in the second quarter of 2024.
On Monday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it was “satisfied” that PLSB had refunded the health ministry RM16.8 million for the 104 faulty ventilators.
PAC chairman Mas Ermieyati Samsudin said the action taken by the ministry was in line with the committee’s recommendation to review the warranty status of all 136 ventilators and ensure appropriate action is taken against those responsible.
According to the PAC’s report in October, the health ministry approved an advance payment of RM30 million to PLSB to procure 500 ventilators, with the balance to be settled after the machines were received.
A total of 136 ventilators worth RM20.1 million were supplied to public health facilities between April 1 and May 19, 2020. However, only 28 were found usable.
An additional RM3.97 million was approved for PLSB to upgrade certain ventilators, bringing the overall procurement cost of the 136 ventilators to RM24.1 million. Of the 15 units replaced, only four units were functional, meaning that 104 were still not functioning.
C4 claimed that recommendations made by the PAC on the matter do not address the maladministration of the executive which circumvented all standard procurement practices in procuring the ventilators during the pandemic.
“In the interests of transparency and accountability, the PAC should have comprehensively investigated the maladministration and provided concrete solutions to the matter.
“Instead, only one minister was summoned for the investigatory proceedings, with no satisfactory explanation regarding the culpability of Cabinet members over this issue which arose from them,” it said.