MEDIA STATEMENT: 1BRIS DEAL IS WAY TOO GENEROUS TO YTL, M.O.E. MUST ANSWER AND MYCC MUST INVESTIGATE
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released its report to us this morning on 1Bestarinet.
There are several issues raised including the issue of late delivery of internet connectivity for 4,176 schools. The PAC noted that no late delivery fines was imposed on the contractor.
However, the biggest issue revealed in this report is the fact that YTL as the main player in the 1Bestarinet project, has and continues to benefit tremendously from extremely low rental it has to pay for 1Bestarinet Receiver Integrated System (1BRIS) sites.
1BRIS sites are land in government schools where YTL is to erect its telecommunication poles.
The PAC report revealed that YTL has contracted some 2,117 1BRIS sites at an extremely low rental rate of RM1,000 per year per site.
The PAC report revealed that the government’s Jabatan Ketua Pengarah Tanah dan Galian (JKPTG) did a valuation and stated that a fair rental for each 1BRIS sites should be RM1,200 a month.
In other words, the fair yearly rental should be RM30,484,800 a year (RM1,200 x 12 months x 2,117 sites) and not the ridiculously low rental rate of RM2,117,000 a year (RM1,000 x 2,117 sites).
The PAC noted that the Minister of Education intervened on behalf of YTL and got JKPTG to revise the rental valuation to RM1,000 a year instead. The Minister and JKPTG must now fully explain the extremely generous rental deal given to YTL.
I also urge the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) to seriously look into issue and investigate if this has given an unfair advantage to YTL over other telco players, who has to pay market rate for their telco receivers.
YB Wong Chen
Member of Parliament for Kelana Jaya
1 November 2016
