Maszlee was responding to allegations that there were dubious dealings involving the company which was awarded the contract by the education ministry during the previous administration.

“The generator set contract allocations before 2017 was awarded to several contractors to cater for electricity supply for 369 schools in Sarawak.

“However, as of January 2017, the contract was awarded solely to Jepak Holdings. The question is this, why when such a huge amount is involved (more than RM1 billion), the contract was not awarded through open tender?” Maszlee asked.

He also questioned why Jepak seemed to have the monopoly for the entire contract.

“The solar hybrid project progress is way behind time when it should have hit 51% completion status to date.

“We hope that none of the schools’ power supply would be disrupted while we work on finding a solution to the discrepancies that we have discovered,” he said at the Higher Education Ministry headquarters.

Maszlee said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was currently probing the matter. However, he declined to reveal more details.

It was earlier reported that former prime minister Najib Razak had allegedly instructed the education ministry to directly appoint a company for a RM1.25 billion solar hybrid project meant to supply electricity to 369 rural schools in Sarawak.

This was revealed in documents sighted by several portals, which also showed that the contract tender bypassed the education ministry’s standard operating procedure and procurement processes.