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 Finance Ministry (MOF).

The former Permatang Pauh MP 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 was clearly a case of nepotism, the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Azam Baki would not have ruined his own reputation by saying that the graft buster did not see any issue with the Selangor transport project awarded to Asia Mobility.

I am therefore shocked to read that P. Ramasamy, supposedly a former professor at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), could agree that Asia Mobility 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 (BN) minister’s son even dropped me a message, “Let’s see today how they (Asia Mobility) justify the transfer of several billion ringgit of taxpayers money to their private company”.

“Billions of ringgits? Since when?” I asked Youth and Sports Minister 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 women, family and community development minister Tan Sri Shahrizat Jalil’s husband in the ‘Cowgate’ scandal and Yeoh’s husband, Ramachandran Muniandy who is CEO of Asia Mobility, one of two companies appointed by the Selangor state government to provide the Demand-Responsive Transit (DRT) service.

In the case of National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), it only involved one company being awarded the grant of RM230 mil while neither the former minister’s husband nor their son was ever engaged in farming activities previously.

On the contrary, 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 being 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.

Once 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-programme 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.

Co-founded by Malaysiakini joint founder and former CEO Premesh Chandran and Ramachandran, Asia Mobility is after all, a Malaysian start-up 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 Bursa Malaysia’s FBM KLCI if the company is listed.

Finally, look at the above TV3 poster. How is it possible for the TV station to even whip up a documentary on the couple within such a short time to broadcast on its channel? This must be all the work of cybertroopers.

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 every molehill.  - May 28, 2024

Stephen Ng
Kuala Lumpur 

https://focusmalaysia.my/exercise-some-critical-thinking-before-accusing-hannah-yeoh-or-selangor-state-govt-of-nepotism/