Communications minister Fahmi Fadzil said he was open-minded about the initiative announced by housing and local government minister Nga Kor Ming last week.

“I haven’t received a full briefing from the housing and local government ministry on this initiative.

“However, I do not perceive it as necessarily overlapping the roles of other existing entities,” he told reporters after a programme in his Lembah Pantai constituency here.

“We certainly want coordination in the dissemination of information to the people. I will review this matter together with the minister (Nga).”

Yesterday, Puad Zarkashi, a former director-general of the now-defunct special affairs department (Jasa) questioned the necessity for Nga’s ministry to appoint 200 “online ambassadors” to disseminate information and combat fake news online.

Puad, an Umno Supreme Council member, said the government already has entities with similar functions, such as the community communications department (better known as J-Kom) and Komuniti Madani, both of which are under the communications ministry.

He said introducing these “online ambassadors” would only lead to overlapping powers and disorganised social media efforts by the government.

J-Kom, a rebranded version of Jasa, is supposed to be the government’s communications arm, tasked with conveying Putrajaya’s messages to the people.

Former housing and local government minister Zuraida Kamaruddin had also commented on the appointment of “online ambassadors”, calling it “wasteful and unethical”.

She said instead of deploying civil servants as cyber-troopers, Nga should just focus on handling issues and initiatives related to his ministry instead.

On a separate matter, Fahmi said the government was considering imposing heavier penalties on those caught stealing telecommunication cables as this was disrupting services.

He said the punishment will be proposed in an amendment to the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which is being studied by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.