KUALA LUMPUR: All eyes are now on the Education Ministry after the Auditor-General revealed last week that it has wasted RM2.025bil on sub-standard security services from 2010 to 2012. Understandably, Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his deputy P. Kamalanathan were furious.
They call for action to be taken against the errant firms and probe be conducted to find out whether there were elements of ineffectiveness or unsystematic implementation by the service providers. While everyone seem to be focussing the blame on the ministry and the security industry, a security contractor met by Malaysian Digest recently said there were more to the issue than just numbers.
He defended the ministry's spending and attributed the bulk of the ballooning costs to the ministry's initiative of implementing the minimum wage. "It is not entirely their fault. In fact, the Education Ministry should be applauded for being the first ministry in the country to implement the minimum wage for security guards, as requested by the government," he said. "They are the one and only government entity willing to help the industry at a time when other ministries and even private sectors were keeping quite and tried to delay the implementation as long as they can," he said.
Thus, the contractor explained the RM2.052bil, spent during the three-year duration, should not be regarded as wastage. This, he said was because more than half of the amount were slated for the security guards' salary anyway. "It is easy to put the blame on the ministry or the security industry but not many were willing to look beyond the numbers and find out what is actually happening beneath it all," he said. The contractor however do admit that there were some bad apples in the industry and weaknesses in the system, leading to accusation of corruption.
"Some say that the Education Ministry is the biggest cash cow for those who want to make a fast buck. This may be true in the past... before the implementation of the minimum wage. "Since the government introduced the RM900 minimum wage, the margin has shrunk significantly. For some firms, more than 80 per cent of the revenues were for the workers' salaries, "I have to admit that there are some security firms that did not follow the regulations but it doesn’t imply to all security firms,’ he said.
He said problems arises not just due to the weak monitoring and enforcement but also the process of awarding contracts to the security firms. "Right from the beginning, there was no coordination between Home Ministry that conducts the vetting and Education Ministry that gives out the contracts, "Take for example Selangor, there are 70 zones and each zones will have about 10 schools. "As a security firm, we are required to check each and every schools there and submit our findings.
During this process, due to time constraint and manpower issue, we had to re-hire and retrain the existing security guards, pending Home Ministry's vetting. "The vetting process itself takes a long time, almost a month. While waiting for the approval, we sometime go to the police station to check whether the security guards had any criminal records. "If the Home Ministry rejected the application, we will have to terminate them immediately and the process starts over again,” he said.
"But the Education Ministry wants everything to be ready within two weeks after the contract was awarded," "We have to prepare everything including the manpower, the entire school's CCTV system, security procedures etc. Not all companies can provide everything in such a short time," he said. In most cases, it was not even the security guards' fault. "Whenever there are cases of break-ins for example, the first person the police go for is the security guard.
There was a case where I had to terminate the services of a 50-something-year-old security guard just because he had a police record - for stealing when he was a teenager. "And he was not even involved in the break-in at that particular school!" he said. At the same time, he said, security firms, out of courtesy, would have to pay or replace the stolen items to the schools. "We have to admit there are weaknesses - some may be too lenient while others too strict.
There are also some who are not serious with their job. After all, we are dealing with human beings. "Many have gone through basic training and know the standard operating procedures. If they do cross the line, each security companies do have their own punishments and it can range from pay cuts to termination of service," he said. Back on the minimum wage issue, the security contractor said although the wage is set at RM900, the actual salary paid to each security guards are higher, ranging from RM1,500 to RM2,100.
This, he said was because the RM900 wage were set based on eight hours of work for the period of 26 days. In an actual situation, the security guards work for 12 hours for roughly 30 days. "Before the implemention, their take-home pay was about RM1,400 but since the minimum wage was implemented, the can easily get about RM2,000," he said. The security contractor said urged all parties including the ministries involved and security companies to improve the guidelines and come up with methods that could be beneficial to all.
"Whatever the regulations set we will have to follow but the way the tenders are awarded should be scrutinised further," he said. He also urged other ministries to toe the line and implement the minimum wage initiative like the Education Ministry. Since 2010, it was reported that a total of RM2.025 billion had been spent on security services for schools nationwide, with a total of 760 contracts awarded to 364 firms. According to the AG's findings, 74 per cent of the 35 schools audited in three states were not given the personal details of all their security guards, while 76 of 129 guards working in the schools also had noproof that they had no criminal records.
The report said the audit also found that there were guards who exceeded the age limit and some who failed to submit health screening reports from government hospitals. It said the Education Ministry had to be firm in enforcing the terms of the contracts with security firms to ensure effective service and enhance security for the benefit of the teachers and students as well as government assets.
A ministry response to the report, made on June 11 this year, stated that the ministry had issued a reminder dated March 20 to all state education departments and the relevant schools to issue a warning letter and cut payments to security service companies which breach the contracts.
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