DAP’s Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim said the anti-graft agency did not need to wait for people to lodge reports on the matter to initiate the action.
He said the project should have been awarded through an open tender for the education ministry to benefit from the lowest possible costing.
“An open tender can ensure that a contractor that is genuinely qualified and can provide a better price is selected, and that there is no cronyism or bribery,” he told FMT today.
PKR MP for Bayan Baru Sim Tze Tzin said he suspected that the tender was given to Utusan Melayu Bhd to help “save” the media company, which has been incurring losses.
“I suspect that this is a way to ‘bail out’ Utusan,” he said, adding that an open tender process could not only ensure lower costs but also better service.
The PKR strategy director also questioned Utusan’s experience in supplying such equipment when it was a newspaper publisher. Utusan also produces the Malay-language Kosmo tabloid.
Yesterday, Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan had told the Dewan Rakyat that Utusan was given the contract to supply the 180,000 tablets, for which some RM152 million had been spent.
He said this when responding to a query from Sim, who claimed a week earlier that the project’s total cost was expected to reach RM340 million.
Sim also said Utusan had recorded losses amounting to nearly RM220 million since 2013.
He cited the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s report in May that said the newspaper’s circulation had dropped by 14%.
He said the tablet contract appeared to be a “lifeline” from the government to the company.
It was reported yesterday that Utusan posted a net profit of RM31.5 million in the third quarter ending Sept 30 this year, after recording losses in the previous six consecutive quarters, including RM10.7 million in the second quarter of 2017.
The Edge reported Utusan as saying in a filing with Bursa Malaysia that the supply of the tablets, which were uploaded with its digital newspapers, had seen an increase in its subscribers’ base to above 180,000.