Report lodged against another MPK councillor

The ‘letters of support’ cauldron continues to boil over as Selangor MCA vice-chief Song Kee Chai today lodged a police report against Klang Municipal Council (MPK) councillor Hamidah Mat Som, who was said to have issued support letters to secure contracts for her husband’s company.

Song  alleged the PKR councillor had from 2009 till now issued several letters of support to endorse her husband’s company SKI Meroo Enterprise, located at Meru, to obtain at least four MPK contracts.

He lodged a report at the Klang police station yesterday morning.

Song (second from right)

He said the contracts involved the departments of parks and recreation, engineering, building and maintenance in MPK.

“Some of the projects have already taken place,” Song said, adding that as an MPK tender board committee member, Hamidah has clearly abused her powers.

“She must have known the bidding price of each tender and plotted her husband’s procurement of the contracts,” he alleged.

Song said an outsider who was unhappy over the unfair system tipped him off.

‘No more support letters’

Hamidah, when contacted, quashed any claim that she had issued such letters.

She claims a councillor is not empowered to influence the board as the board will choose the right tenders based on their offer prices.

She also denied that her husband had received projects from the four MPK departments.

“What he (Song) told were lies,” said the three-term PKR councillor.

She claimed that since 2008 the council no longer treated role of letters of support as sacred, and now practiced a tender system based on merit.

“Even YDP (council president)’s support letter does not guarantee you the job,” she said.

However, she admitted that her husband has indeed held several licences for MPK projects, but that he has since given them away to a friend in PKR.

“My husband is not using the licences,” she told Malaysiakini.

She also admitted that some friends from PKR had sought support letters from her to secure one-off projects lasting a month, but stressed that she had stopped issuing any letters since the beginning of the year.

MPK council president Mislan Tugiu was unavailable for comment.