The King have had to wait another nine hours for a flight out of Kuala Terengganu airport. Last night, on 6th May ’07, he was scheduled to board a special flight at 10.45pm after gracing the prize-giving ceremony of the YDSMPENN Endurance Challenge 2007 at the Kelab Teluk Warisan in Pulau Duyong, near here.
Why? On Saturday, the runway lights failed to operate due to damaged power cables at the Sultan Mahmud airport. Two in-bound flights, one MAS and the other, AirAsia, were requested to return to K.L. Three departures from K.T. that evening, two returning flights to K.L. and a Firefly flight to Penang were postponed indefinitely. DCA panicked. The contractors handling the extension works at the airport were summoned. After much effort, the contractors promised the landing lights would be operational by Monday morning 7th May ’07.
The contractor is TRC Synergy Bhd which was awarded the contract to do extension work at the K.T. airport. The talk in town is that TRC is a Pak Lah regime ‘preferred’ company.
TRC have won too many contracts, mostly through direct negotiations, since Pak Lah came into office. They were also awarded the Bentong prison project which is nearing completion and the new Dang Wangi IPD headquarters.
The history of TRC is rather interesting. Some of the former directors were Dato’ Shahrir Samad, MP for Johor Bahru and his protege, Dato’ Khalid Nordin, now with the Ministry of Entreprunier and Cooperative Development (MECD). Khalid was formerly deputy Works minister.
TRC developed their strategic business model (SBM) by ‘investing’ in a number of UMNO personalities. Over time, MECD is said to have given a few ‘direct negotiated’ contracts to TRC, including several new MRSMs and IKMs which are currently under and/or will be built soon. They are also vying for the UniKL, Johor branch, project.
The new RMN base at Seppangar Bay in Sabah is another project given to TRC while closer to home in Putrajaya, they are building a ‘nice’ and ‘cosy’ villa for the Finance Ministry’s political secretary, a former chartered accountant, who is not a newbie to the contruction industry.
Someone did the math and said that TRC have amassed projects with a book order value in excess of RM1 billion ringgit under the RMK9 which is more than they could chew. Moreover, TRC are still lobbying for a few more ‘direct negotiation’ contracts but under different companies. Suffice to say, with TRC’s ‘SBM’, it is likely they will get these lucrative contracts.
In truth, the real player in TRC is Richard Khoo. TRC, the company and it’s directors are merely the front and lobbyists respectively for the real player and operators of this fast rising contruction company. To some who joked about the ‘Alibaba-ness’ of TRC, the acronym stood for “Tunggu Richard Cakap”, clearly depicting the one who calls the shots.
Perhaps, it is the cordial and laidback manner of Pak Lah’s regime to dish out so many contracts to one entity like in this case. Whether we should debate on this is open for conjecture but at the very least, TRC should do a good job at it.
If not for the King’s sake, then for the rakyat. Nobody likes to be left stranded.
13 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 7, 2007 at 3:40 am
Biggum Dogmannsteinberg
Nice piece of work. It inspired me to talk further on the issue.
Keep it up! π
May 7, 2007 at 4:08 am
zorro
Wow, wow, wow, so early and then you are scooping. Of course the MSM knows about it but they cannot write about it. What’s the word? Impotent….cannot rise to the occasion. Actually the top cats in a way are getting slicker by the day. Getting to be a smooth operator. Give most of the project to selected two or three groups. That way easier to control and easier to account for how much……but Shar, you and I have missed the sampan….
——————————————————————————————
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Zorro.
He’s a little late in dropping by, apparently, due to Hantu giving him the wrong address – shar101.
May 7, 2007 at 4:52 am
Daily Nibbler
Pooh..now you are biting. Din expect the change of pace – from being melodramatic to “I need a scalp” mode. Way to go!
May 7, 2007 at 6:08 am
rockybru
hey bro,
let’s see the star and nst follow this up.
for king and coward of the county.
May 7, 2007 at 9:40 am
galadriel
welcome dear Shar. Already kicking ass I see. Me excited. Indeed man, u surprise me all the time.
May 7, 2007 at 10:57 am
ewoon
Way to go, bro. Before, you fretted about your first blog; now, you are into your first scoop. i think there’s a lot more where it’s coming from. Keep it up. i can tell there’s no stopping you now, is there? (a rhetorical ?)
May 7, 2007 at 4:49 pm
ekeen
Nowadays it is not what people can performed but more to who you know and who know you. That is the reason why “Malaysia Boleh Blah…”
All the best to Bro Shar.
May 7, 2007 at 6:25 pm
shanghaistephen
What a scoop,bro.It is more like PLPC (“Pak Lah Preffered Companies”) Man do they award one too many contracts to one company ? Must have a KPI for big project companies… what am I saying … they play musical chairs with the directors lah…so KPI won’t work !
Anyways if….if..only I get one of these projects hhhmmmm..cukup lah jadi Billionaire !
So coming back to the airport fiasco..no night flights? who’s paying for all flights cancellations ?…the airlines or the contractor ? 3 days to repair lights…hhmmm. “its like the little bulb in a cloud is fused on the thinking head” (as you’d see in cartoons !)heh…heh…no more ideas !
May 7, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Mat Salo
My goodness Shar!
Talk about “King in Waiting” dude, the King is YOU! π Bravo man!
Excellent thought-provoking article; well-written – damn – late in coming but better late than never! Even Bird Duck is smitten – what more RPK – even if Unker B claims you and him to have missed the perahu! Ha ha ha…
This has got to be the prime candidate (shuck that, the ONLY candidate) for Rookie of The Year Honors! Too bad of me being holed-up in a swamp, I’d surely LOVE to tinkle some glass bro’!
Well Done!
May 9, 2007 at 12:47 am
Orang Baik
What is this gossiping all about? Any body ever wonder why it takes 2 days and 2 nights to fix the cable? Is it true that the cable is damaged by the contractor as per written by the newspaper. Where does that news come from? Is it from reliable source? I believe there is some thing more than just a simple cable snap. Any contractor could have gotten one meter of cable and join any broken cable and voila.. Light will be back in no time. Not to mentioned a well respected and reputable contractor like TRC.
So busy people, don’t speculate. Lets wait for the report to come up. Don’t pass judgement before the trail has even began else you may find yourself on the wrong side and need to gag yourself. Be patient and the truth will prevail.
July 31, 2007 at 5:26 pm
bendera merah
..thats why all the alif,baa & taa people in MARA kena freeze….
————————————————————————————————————————–
BM, this is interesting. Care to elaborate -shar101.
August 1, 2007 at 1:32 am
bendera merah
bro Shar101…the best person in town to elaborate is bro Bigdog..me just know sikit jeeerr…yg lebih mengetahui..about MAra to ANsara to kapal terbang malaysia ….my tails ketot lagi…sorry bro big dog
————————————————————————————————————————–
BM, faham bro. Baru semalam jumpa BD. Tapi aku hairan kenapa orang baca KIW dengan tiba-tiba. Rupa-nya H.Lempoyang buat cerita dongeng Geisha. Kesian KN – shar101.
August 18, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Shar101’s scoop on TRC « The “thirteen million plus Ringgit” guy rambles….
[…] scoop on TRC Well, it seemed Shar 101 has a scoop . Not bad for a newbie. Titled βKING IN WAITING?β (in bold capital letters), this is a story about a Pak Lah crony construction company, been […]