Pemandu comms exec hits out over 1 Malaysia email
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — The Performance Management and Delivery Unit’s (Pemandu) corporate communications chief today waded into the 1 Malaysia email project row by publicly accusing The Malaysian Insider over Twitter of “distorting” the agency’s statement.
Ku Kok Peng neglected to issue a formal complaint with this news portal but charged on his personal Twitter micro-blog this evening that The Malaysian Insider had misreported Pemandu’s statement over the controversy “again”.
“No thks to MalaysianInsider 4 distorting our statement. Again. So much 4 objective reporting,” Ku wrote on his Twitter account, @kukokpeng.
The Malaysian Insider reported this afternoon Pemandu’s refusal to divulge the cost of a two-page advertorial headlined “Truths and Lies about MyEmail”, which was published in major newspapers today to defend the 1 Malaysia email project.
The advertorial had sparked questions over why Pemandu, an agency under the Prime Minister’s Department, was using public funds to defend the project despite earlier promises that it would remain a private initiative.
The Malaysian Insider had then emailed several questions to Ku, seeking answers over the cost of the advertorials and why public funds had been used, but the Pemandu official omitted the information in his response.
Instead, Ku wrote, “Pemandu tries to put out timely and accurate information for public interest. Tricubes has also issued two statements, one Q&A document, held a media briefing and engaged with various media. The reason why we are clarifying this situation is to make sure that the general public is not misinformed by people who distort the truth.”
When contacted later and pressed for an answer, Ku refused to field further questions on the issue.
“We have answered your question… I have nothing to add,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
The advertorial has drawn flak from several opposition lawmakers who, when contacted, said that the move to defend the email project should be wholly funded by project owners, Tricubes Bhd.
“If it’s a private initiative, then obviously advertisements and [efforts] pushing for its use should be done by the private company, instead of the government,” Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said.
“If it’s private, (there) shouldn’t be anything (that’s) spent by the government. To me, it’s propaganda,” the PAS central political bureau member added.
“I think it has come to a really silly stage where the government is spending tens of thousands in advertorials to defend a so-called private initiative because ‘Pemandu believes in integrity and transparency’,” said DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua. “If that’s really the case, then just disclose the request for proposal (RFP) documents from the government as well as the full contract terms and letter of award given to Tricubes.
“Publish them online and save the tens of thousands of tax-payers’ money,” he added.
In Pemandu’s advertorial, the agency’s CEO Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala had said that Tricubes Bhd would invest 100 per cent of the RM50 million MyEmail project that was conceptualised as an Entry Point Project (EPP) under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
Jala also stressed that the government “will not spend a single sen” in the project’s investment and operating costs.
“On the other hand, it is estimated that the government stands to save at least RM200 million over 10 years,” he said.
