Confused, bewildered by the 1Malaysia e-mail project
By K. Pragalath and Tarani Palani, Free Malaysia Today
KUALA LUMPUR: Most people are bewildered by the Prime Minister’s move to set up a RM50 million 1Malaysia e-mail project.
The question everyone is asking is why do we need this when any service providers will give you a free email account.
According to Najib Tun Razak all Malaysians aged 18 and above will be given a secure 1 Malaysia e-mail accounts to allow direct and secure communication between the public and the government.
Tricubes Bhd, a little known and dubious technology company, was picked to launch the email project and they are already earning dividends from yesterday’s announcement. Tricubes shares hit 16 sen after brisk trading this morning, a jump of 6.5 sen from yesterday’s closing price of 9.5 sen .
Blogger Haris Ibrahim who blogs at People’s Parliament termed the project as a “hare-brained” scheme that is “absolutely and utterly nonsensical”.
“Why in heaven’s name do we need this project? Whoever came up with the idea should be fired. If it is the Prime Minister (PM) who came up with it, he should be fired,” he told FMT.
“We are talking of spending RM50 million when we can get an email account (for free) from any major server providers,” he said.
Haris said that the country’s level of internet penetration should be considered before embarking on such an expensive IT based project.
It has been reported that there is huge gap in the rural and urban divide in internet usage in Malaysia with 80 percent of internet penetration only concentrated in urban areas.
He said that the money could have been better spent as 40 percent of households in Malaysia are having “tremendous” difficulty in making ends meet as they earn an income of less than RM 1500 and below.
Instead he said, “The caring 1Malaysia government claims that the project will not come from the tax payer’s money. That is yet to be seen.”
He said the the government had more pressing matters such as the Bumiputera, non-Bumiputera divide to be addressed and are completely missing the mark with initiatives such as the 1Malaysia email account.
Najib, well aware the hostile reception his scheme is getting, tweeted last night: “Before I sleep, let me clarify that the 1Malaysia E Mail is a private sector project. No public money is involved and entirely voluntary.”
Negative online reaction
Another avid blogger who Nathaniel Tan also raised reservations that no tax-payer’s money would be used to fund the project.
He had twitted, “Just like how submarine commissions ‘not paid by taxpayers’?”.
He was referring to the naval arms manufacturer DCN’s sale of three Franco-Spanish Scorpene diesel-electric attack submarines to Malaysia in 2001 where allegedly various government-linked officials received kickbacks.
Tan said that the immediate reaction from Malaysians on social networking sites like Facebook and micro blogging site Twitter has been negative.
