Exercise some critical thinking before accusing Hannah Yeoh or the Selangor State Government of nepotism
29 May 2024
A lot of people have been asking me about this case, here is my answer:
DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? A poster like this which is already in circulation is a tell-tale sign that this is part of a plot to cause the collapse of the Madani Government.
THE WORD ‘NEPOTISM’ has been stretched too far that I find it incredulous to
hear people saying anyone married to a minister should not be given a
government contract.
By definition, ‘nepotism’ means “the unfair practice of
granting jobs and favours to relatives, often in business and politics.”
That was the reason I
did not think that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim should bow to
pressure from unreasonable people when her daughter, Nurul Izzah was willing to
take up a non-paying job to assist her father in the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
Nurul would have done
a good job to ensure that all the terms and conditions of agreements issued by
MOF are thoroughly vetted through.
For argument’s sake,
if the award to Asia Mobility Technologies Sdn Bhd (Asia Mobiliti), were clearly
a case of nepotism, Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Datuk Seri
Azam Baki would not have ruined his own reputation by saying that MACC did not
see any issue with a Selangor transport project awarded to the company.
I am therefore shocked
to read that P. Ramasamy, supposedly a former professor at Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, could agree that Asia Mobiliti and the second service
provider are “competent individuals to undertake the project,” yet unable to
see this beyond his narrow definition of ‘nepotism.’
In short, what I see
is, our education system has not produced people who can differentiate between
what is right from wrong. Politicians and netizens alike just jump into conclusion
blindly without thinking critically.
Just because someone
is a relative of a public official, there is no reason why the contract cannot
be awarded – especially when the party is competent to carry out the job.
One former Barisan Nasional minister’s son even dropped me a message, “Let’s
see today how they (Asia Mobiliti) justify the transfer of several billion
ringgit of taxpayers money to their private company.”
“Billions of Ringgits? Since when?” I asked Minister of Youth and Sports,
Hannah Yeoh, whom I have known since 2008. I cannot agree with her more that
things are “just (getting) more and more ridiculous.”
Big Contrast
There
is a sharp contrast between the case of former Minister of Women and Family
Development, Shahrizat Jalil’s husband in the cowgate scandal and Yeoh’s
husband, Ramachandran Muniandy, who is CEO of Asia Mobiliti, one of two
companies appointed by Selangor State Government to provide the Demand-Responsive
Transit (DRT) service.
In the case of NFCorp,
it only involved one company being awarded the grant of RM230 million, where
neither the former minister’s husband nor their son was ever engaged in farming
activities; meanwhile, Asia Mobility has bagged a number of awards including
the Newton Ungku Omar Fund Grand Challenge 2019 award.
Three years in a row,
it has won a number of awards – a global semi-finalist for Toyota Mobility
Foundation’s 2020 CATCH challenge, a global Top 150 semi-finalist for X-PITCH
2021 and a sole Malaysian representative in the Entrepreneurship World Cup
Global Finals 2022.
Its
Trek Rides has also been recognised as a global Top 100 solution in the 2023
AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge, besides being a winner of the Carsome Mobility
Lab accelerator programme – the first auto ecosystem-focused accelerator in
Southeast Asia – and most recently, selected into the 100Soonicorns in Malaysia.
Only
implemented, the DRT targets to provide “a more efficient and cost-effective
first- and last-mile passenger services” where both service providers are
required to fork out millions to “procure vehicles, hire drivers and continue
to optimise and develop the technology that powers the service.”
This
is on top of being on probation for “a period of nine months”, which will allow
the Selangor state government to pilot the service in a real-world setting and
assess the
performance
of the service providers, while providing them the opportunity to improve their
services for the entire period of time. The DRT is arguably the first of its
kind state-program anywhere in Southeast Asia.
Once
successful, the DRT will enable on-demand shared rides services with the use of
intelligent, machine-learning algorithms to automate fleet dispatch and
optimise vehicle routing to accomplish efficient pick-up and drop-off of passengers
headed to various destinations.
This
is, in fact, a departure from the fixed schedule and route of conventional
public transport services using 44-seater coaches which I have always lamented
as inefficient. After the successful implementation of DRT, these coaches can
then be deployed to provide efficient depot-to-depot services from the suburbs
to the city centre.
No
Tender and no Monopoly
Two,
instead of one company, were appointed to ensure that there is no monopoly by a
single service provider.
In
this situation, where there are only two qualified companies in Malaysia
providing a highly specialised new service, what makes national MCA Youth
secretary-general Saw Yee Fung think it is necessary to have an open tender?
Saw’s
idea of an open tender would mean just one bidder would ultimately have the
monopoly of the services in Selangor.
Asia Mobiliti, co-founded by Malaysiakini founder, Premesh Chandran and Ramachandran is after all, a Malaysian startup since 2018. Having earned global and regional recognition, it has the potential to be a unicorn and may be the goose that lay the golden eggs to help boost the KL composite index, if the company is listed.
Therefore, if only Malaysians learnt to exercise some critical thinking, we would not have arrived at such a situation where politicians make a mountain out of a molehill.
Finally, look at this poster. How is it possible for TV3 to even whip up a documentary on the couple within such a short time to broadcast on its channel? It is obvious this must be all the work of cybertroopers trying to force Yeoh to resign or to cause the collapse of the Madani government. There is too much at stake for some who are now facing the music after so many years of being left untouched.
Here is the link to the first press statement I received from Asia Mobiliti Sdn Bhd. Download Here.
An update and press statement by the Selangor State Government. Download Here.
A research paper submitted and published back in the early 2000s. Download Here.
Continue to read my arguments on what is happening and why things are happening that way: https://come-to-senses.blogspot.com/2024/05/why-some-issues-blow-up-please-go-back.html
Also read:
https://come-to-senses.blogspot.com/2023/12/berrys-controversy-this-is-all-common.html
Comments
Post a Comment