Zahidi said he has only been asked to attend one briefing so far on the decision to let Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) manage the 5G network, adding that he was not invited to any meetings on DNB.

“I don’t know about the minister (Annuar Musa). If he was involved, i was not informed,” he said at a press conference.

He also said he heard that DNB would be regulated by his ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), but he was not officially informed of this yet.

Zahidi had earlier received a memorandum from Umno Youth over DNB’s involvement in the 5G rollout.

Umno needs ‘clean’ image in GE15

Zahidi, who is an Umno Supreme Council member, said the party must go into the next general election (GE15) with a clean image in order to be accepted by the people.

He said Umno needed to find “the best way” to do that, but maintained that individuals standing trial in court were innocent until proven guilty.

Several prominent Umno figures are standing trial, including party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is facing charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust involving millions from Yayasan Akalbudi and accepting bribes for various projects during his tenure as the home minister.

Former prime minister Najib Razak is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.

Najib was also convicted on seven charges of power abuse, criminal breach of trust and money laundering over RM42 million belonging to SRC International that entered his bank accounts.

The Pekan MP was sentenced to 12 years jail and a RM210 million fine. The Court of Appeal upheld his sentence, and his final appeal is pending before the Federal Court.

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