KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 1): YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL Comms) was in the spotlight in Parliament today, as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that the company had been enjoying discounted rents for the former’s telecommunication tower sites at 2,117 government schools under the 1BestariNet project.
YTL Comms is 60%-owned by publicly-listed YTL Power International Bhd. PAC is a bipartisan standing committee of the Dewan Rakyat.
According to PAC’s report to Members of Parliament today, YTL Comms had been paying RM1,000 per site for the 1BestariNet Receiver Integrated System (1BRIS) sites, on an annual basis, which works out to be just RM2.12 million every year.
However, the Department of Director General of Lands and Mines (JKPTG) did a valuation and found that fair rental for each 1BRIS site should be RM1,200 every month, which is equivalent to RM30.48 million a year.
The PAC report also revealed this was due to intervention by the Minister of Education (MoE) on behalf of YTL Comms, which resulted in JKPTG revising the rental rate to RM1,000 annually.
In response to PAC’s query, JKPTG said the revision was based on YTL Comms’ concession agreement.
“In the concession agreement, rental was not mentioned. [However] the agreement stated that ‘the government must prepare the site’. Therefore JKPTG had taken this into consideration,” JKPTG explained in the report.
In a press conference at the Parliament lobby later, Kelana Jaya’s Member of Parliament Wong Chen urged the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) to look into the issue and investigate if the company had been given an unfair advantage over other telecommunication players.
1BestariNet is a 15-year project worth RM4.47 billion under the MoE that was aimed at establishing high-speed internet services to 10,000 government schools nationwide in order to facilitate education quality to be on par with international standard.
In the report, the PAC also noted that issues with 1BestariNet — including the setting up of Internet connection at 4,176 schools were completed beyond the deadline (March 30, 2013), by between 12 to 439 days — were due to a weakness in contract execution.
“But there was no approval [sought or given] for extension nor was any penalty imposed on MoE’s contractor,” PAC said.
Therefore, PAC recommended that the Auditor-General (AG) should conduct a thorough audit on whether these issues that have been raised are being rectified or not.
“On top of that, PAC also wants the AG to conduct an effectiveness study on the 1BestariNet project. The PAC will also conduct visits to these schools, whether they are in urban or rural areas. The AG is required to review documents of 1BestariNet’s contractual agreement to ensure the government’s interests are protected,” PAC said.