Umno division heads and agencies involved in the distribution of the RM600 million worth of projects to Class F contractors have been told to give the jobs to active contractors and not 'part-time' contractors or brokers.

Kuala Lumpur Class F Contractors Association head Ahmad Awang said the government should only help genuine contractors.

"At present, there are three categories of Class F contractors, the first consist of genuine contractors, the second 'part-time' contractors who hold other jobs and the third, contract brokers who are just 'sleeping partners'.

"These part-time contractors and brokers who get the projects sell them off to others and make a profit. These are the Alibaba or Alisami contractors," he told malaysiakini recently.

He was commenting on the decision by the government to allocate an additional RM600 million for Class F contractors which will be distributed via 191 Umno divisions nationwide.

The distribution of about RM3 million for each division will be handled by the respective division heads with the help of the district office and Public Works Department (PWD).

The works which can be given to Class F contractors include road repairs, fixing of drains, painting jobs and so forth. Each project should not exceed RM200,000.

Monitor the contractors

According to Ahmad Awang, the existence of part-time contractors and brokers is not an empty allegation as this problem has also been acknowledged by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and Works Minister S Samy Vellu.

He said statistics released by CIDB recently showed that only 20,000 of the 32,242 Class F contractors are active while Samy said that only 16,000 are operating full-time.

In view of this, he hoped the Umno division heads will ensure that the list of contractors submitted to the district office and PWD contain the names of only active contractors.

"The division heads should also monitor who receives the projects to ensure that only those who are qualified get them," he said.

The Class F contractor licence is issued by the Contractors Services Centre (PKK) which comes under the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development.

A PKK officer told malaysiakini that a company, enterprise, co-operative or organisation which is 100 percent bumiputera-owned can apply to be a Class F contractor.

However, he said the government has frozen the issuance of the licence as there are too many Class F contractors in the country at the moment.