Samy reciting Karma Less Sutra

Sub-contractors to be paid directly by Works Ministry

Samy Vellu said: "The Works Ministry will make direct payments to sub-contractors handling government projects with immediate effect to ensure that they receive the money on time. This will also overcome the problem of them not getting the amount promised by main contractors."

Samy Vellu said, "Under a directive from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, contractors handling government projects will also have to register their sub-contractors."

Samy doesn't seem to have much to say. He keep reciting his Karma without the Sutra. He is saying something from nothing. He must be so confused that he did not realized that he knew nothing of what's happening in JKR for the last few decades, and he doesn't know that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about anything that really mattered on this subject matter.

Since the 1990s, JKR had been practicing the direct payment to the Nominated Sub-contractor. Upon award of any PWD projects to the main contractor, the main contractor would have to sign Form 66 which empowers the JKR to make direct payment to all Nominated Sub-contractors.

The move was to resolve complaints from nominated sub-contractors that numerous main contractors did not pay them when they received monies from the government which include payment due to these sub-contractors, or that the monies was not paid in a reasonable timely manner or that the sum paid was a reduced amount than the amount certified in the payment certificate.

Firstly, this directive did not come from Pak Lah's instruction but was implemented during the Mahathir's regime and what Pak Lah did was a continuity of the policies.

Secondly, it is not the sub-contractors which is engaged by the main contractor (and often defined as domestic sub-contractors) that is intended but the Nominated Sub-contractors and Nominated Suppliers.

Thirdly, the government cannot interfere into the affairs on payment terms and conditions of contract between the domestic sub-contractors who were contracted by the main-contractors as it could, by implied terms, create a contractual obligations by the cause of action, and also be an act of interference which varied the terms and conditions of contract, thereby caused the government to have created a special relationship with the other parties who were not a party to the contract with the government, by way of "Voluntary Assumption of Responsibility" which thereof give rise to a special duty of care under the Hedley Byrne v Heller Principles.

We have so many legal advisors in JKR and we also have the Attorney-general office to provide legal advices to the Works Ministry; yet we don't see them advising rightly, or is it that Samy is not listening to the legal experts?