“They called us and said it will be given to DNB,” he told Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh (PH-Ledang).

He said the finance ministry had not discussed the appointment of DNB with them.

He said his ministry had a meeting with DNB to ask about the specifics as they were concerned about the pricing. He said DNB gave an assurance that its prices would be cheaper than that for the 4G network.

“That was their guarantee. We accepted this. We had to agree,” he said.

To a question from Sim Tze Tzin (PH-Bayan Baru), he said his ministry could only discuss pricing and service implementation as the finance ministry had already “accepted them”.

He said his ministry was also told to get the cooperation of Telekom Malaysia in implementing the project as it had the  infrastructure and “DNB does not have anything.”

Fahmi Fadzil (PH-Lembah Pantai) asked why DNB was given the rollout project “if they do not have anything”.

“How did they get it (contract)?”

Zahidi replied: “That you have to ask the finance ministry.”

“If you ask us about investments, we don’t do investments because it is under Miti (ministry of international trade and industry). Our work is on communications but the finance ministry wanted to look into telecommunications work. So we let them do it.”

He said his ministry would work with the finance ministry on the matter.

DNB, a government agency, has been tasked with building and managing the entire 5G telecommunications network but has run into problems with poor take-up by the telcos.