A coalition of 72 civil society groups has urged Putrajaya to strengthen the Government Procurement Bill 2025 instead of pushing for it to be passed in the Dewan Rakyat during the current session, which ends today.
The CSO Platform for Reform group urged the government to strengthen transparency and disclosure requirements under the bill, especially in areas like defence procurements, which it said were at higher risk of wastage and corruption.
Making open tenders a policy for these “high-risk” procurements would curb the abuse of government funds, it said in a statement.
It also noted that the current bill allows the finance minister to exempt entire government programmes from procurement rules by labelling them as matters of “public interest” to sidestep objections or appeals.
“Without genuine checks and balances, such procurements may remain shielded from scrutiny, raising alarm for national integrity and financial accountability.
“Introduce structural safeguards to limit ministerial discretion, guarantee the independence of the appeals tribunal, and close loopholes that enable exemptions from procurement rules.
“The bill should be delayed to fix the gaps mentioned,” it said, joining growing calls for the bill to be further improved before it is voted on in Parliament.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the finance minister, had said that the bill was a necessity given past scandals like 1MDB, the Jana Wibawa programme, and the RM9 billion littoral combat ship project.
However, a think tank and anti-graft groups called for the bill to be postponed due to weaknesses in the proposed law, with one group describing it as “institutionally dangerous“.
