Generally, my office do not like to do projek kecil. We prefer to give direct financial aid to the poorest, subject to a rigorous interview process. We do this in our welfare month of June. Projek kecils inevitably means contractors will make around 25% profit margin. When I have 40,000 poor living in low cost areas in Kelana Jaya, spending on projek kecils just do not seem a good use of public money. Using the same philosophy, I do not throw any makan or festive celebrations at all. Some of my hardcore poor need a lot more than my constituents eating free food for a 3 hour festive event. This year we gave financial support to about 400 families out of 700 applicants.
Projek kecils are also time consuming because our office do these properly with tender, evaluation, award, monitoring and follow up. These works are small ranging between RM5,000 to RM15,000 but takes up a lot of time. However the Selangor govt has insisted that we use 30% of our annual RM250,000 allocation to do projek kecils. So this year we had to cut contributions to organisations, RA, Rukun Tetangga and religious bodies in order to do these projek kecils while maintaining financial support for the poorest.
For projek kecils we have to engage class F contractors. So far we have worked with two contractors, En. Razali (Al Fala Enterprise) and Puan Azura (Usaha KT Enterprise). Both are capable and deliver on time. Azura’s qoutes are about 10% pricier but her workmanship and delivery is better, with no complaints and no touch up repairs. We enjoy working with Razali because of his humour but have to monitor him more tightly. We would like both of them to continue to push each other with competition. I am also very lucky to have Mr. Leong who drives a tough bargain with a very practical approach to these projects, delivering needs and not wants. I would also have to acknowledge my wonderful community officer, Abigail who coordinated the works and showed great patience in dealing with all.
Here is a breakdown of the projects that I visited:
Ladang Glenmarie. Replaced completely the inside roof of the hall and putting in anti termite treatment. Contractor: Razali. Price: RM14,999.40.
Blok 7 & 8 Kampung Lindungan. Tiled the floor of their meeting room. Concrete work on entrance of hall. Contractor: Azura. Price: RM8,991.00
Blok 1 & 2 PKNS Kampung Lindungan. Replaced all rotting wood window frames with alluminium frames and extensions. Contractor: Razali. Price: RM9,522.00.
Blok 3 PKNS Kampung Lindungan. Built new fences for community garden. Contractor: Azura. Price: RM5,541.00.
Desa Ria. Put up protective grills for windows. Hooligans have thrown stones at windows of the tadika and community hall. Plugged a broken sewage pipe. Installed a door and minor repairs on community office. Contractor: Razali. Price: RM6,678.50.
Attached are photos of the work order and sites and work done.
