GeoAnalitikEducation and Health hold more than half of federal contract money, and Education’s leans to rural districts
Of RM 103.6 billion in tenders and quotations from January 2023 to September 2026, Education’s awards are RM 33.4 billion and Health’s RM 22.4 billion, together 54%. Education places RM 314 per resident a year in rural districts against RM 107 in urban ones; Health runs the other way, RM 120 urban against RM 62 rural. Rural and Regional Development leans furthest: RM 43.2 per rural resident against RM 6.5 urban. The Sarawak interior’s high figures are mostly Education’s: RM 1,251 per resident a year in Belaga, RM 1,788 in Julau and RM 1,175 in Kapit.
Figure 1. One ministry’s money placed in each district per resident a year, January 2023 to September 2026, tenders and quotations together; the five shades split the districts into fifths. Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan are drawn 5° west.
Ministries differ in how much they place, and how locally they buy
Works, Energy Transition and Water, and Rural and Regional Development place 86% to 94% of their money in a district; Defence and Finance place a quarter or less. Some ministries spread it wide: Education’s five biggest districts hold 15% of its placed money, Rural and Regional Development’s 16%. Others concentrate it: Energy Transition and Water’s five hold 91%. Firms from the district’s own state win 65% of Education’s placed money and 58% of Rural and Regional Development’s, but 14% of Works’, where Kuala Lumpur and Selangor firms win 83% (Table 1).
Table 1. Each ministry’s money and awards, January 2023 to September 2026, the largest first; the share placed in a district; the median award; the share of its money held by its largest 1% of awards; and, of the placed money whose winner’s address is known, the shares won by firms based in the same state and in Kuala Lumpur or Selangor.
Rural against urban, ministry by ministry
Per resident a year, Education, Home Affairs, Works and Rural and Regional Development place more in rural districts than in urban ones; Health and Energy Transition and Water place more in urban ones (Table 2).
Table 2. The twelve largest ministries’ placed money per resident a year by density class, RM.
By year and by state
By the year an award was accepted, 2025 is the largest year for Education and Health alike (Figure 2). Table 3 sets the ten largest ministries against the states, per resident.
Figure 2. Tender and quotation money by the year the award was accepted, the four largest ministries and the rest, RM, placed or not. 2026 is January to September.
Table 3. Placed money per resident a year by state for the ten largest ministries, RM, January 2023 to September 2026. Each column is shaded in its own fifths.
Method
- A ministry is the name on the award as MyProcurement publishes it, grouped across renames since 2020: Rural Development with Rural and Regional Development; Agriculture and Food Industries with Agriculture and Food Security; Higher Education under both its Malay names; Housing and Local Government with Local Government Development; the environment, natural-resources and energy-and-natural-resources ministries as one (Energy Transition and Water stays its own); Communications and Multimedia, Communications and Digital, Communications, and Digital as one.
- State secretariats are the state governments’ own purchases that the Treasury lists; one award carries no ministry and is left out.
- Per resident a year: the ministry’s money placed in the district over the window, divided by its 2024 residents and by 3.75.