SEPANG- Malaysia Airports is committed in ensuring that the organisation upholds integrity to the highest level. One of the areas that this is practised strictly is in its procurement process which has achieved ISO 37001:2016 certification for its Anti-Bribery Management System (ABMS). Malaysia Airports is among the first 50 establishments that have obtained this certification and it takes pride in joining the ranks of this group of multinational and government-linked companies that strongly believe in ensuring a corruption-free workplace.
Recently there was an article written in The Edge Weekly regarding the tenders for the Automated People Mover (APM) and the COVID-19 Private Screening and Testing for KLIA. This article misrepresented the situation and had caused confusion among other media members who had read it as MACC is investigating both the tenders, which is untrue. As such, we would like to clarify that we had received a request from MACC to provide information and documentation on the COVID-19 Private Screening and Testing contract award for KLIA. Following this, we have given our full cooperation and complied with all MACC requirements. There has been no further enquiry from MACC and the enquiry does not involve the APM tender.
Malaysia Airports also wishes to reiterate that the procurement process for all our tenders is conducted in strict compliance with the procurement standard operating procedures (SOPs) with the ABMS serving as an additional safeguard to provide another layer of control within the company’s processes. The controls are placed at both human and process levels and will act as an intervention to close any possible gaps. Malaysia Airports can confirm that all due processes were adhered to and are in accordance with our corporate governance.
Malaysia Airports’ standard tender approach is through open competition whereby all tender information is transparently and fairly disseminated to participating bidders from the start of the tender process to its closing. This also applies to any additional information generated during the tender submission period. All the evaluation criteria are also revealed as part of the tender package given to bidders.
The evaluation is carried out in three stages where each evaluation is carried out independently by separate subject matter teams. Stage 1 is the Mandatory Tender Requirements evaluation, Stage 2 is the Technical and Financial Standing evaluation and Stage 3 is the Commercial Offer evaluation. Bids must first pass each evaluation stage before proceeding to the next. In other words, bids that do not pass Mandatory Tender Requirements will not be evaluated further and so forth. This process ensures that only bids that meet all the Mandatory, Technical and Financial requirements will be evaluated at the final stage which is the Commercial offers. The tender will then be awarded to the best proposal that is the most commercially attractive and most competitive to the Company either in terms of price or revenue generation, depending on the tender requirements.
It is also important to note that the evaluation criteria for each stage are specific, measurable and deemed necessary for delivering the project successfully. For complete transparency, it is our practice to reveal these criteria to bidders at the onset of the tender exercise.
As part of corporate governance in protecting and respecting each bidder’s competitive tender information, Malaysia Airports require that participants in the tender process adhere to confidentiality terms stated in the respective tender exercise. Similarly, the respective evaluation teams have to sign a binding Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before involvement. Our evaluation process requires activities to be carried out in designated evaluation rooms and to follow specific security protocols to safeguard information security.
Ultimately for the tender awards, particularly for high value and/or strategic awards of public interest, the decision is made by the Board Procurement Committee and/or Main Board under Malaysia Airports current approval governance. As a public-listed company, we act objectively in the best interest of the shareholders of the company and our decisions are supported by clear data and documentation.
We hope this will provide clarity to the market on our ABMS certified procurement processes and will put a stop to unnecessary and inaccurate speculation regarding tenders issued by Malaysia Airports, that may cause disruption to the process. Malaysia Airports is performing its responsibility to provide better services to the public and to upgrade ageing assets at the flagship airport in order to ensure that our national gateway is equipped with the best infrastructure systems and technology in time to cater for the anticipated recovery of air travel.