On 9 September 2014, yours truly had a meeting with Yg Bhg Datuk Ali Hanafiah, the learned Deputy Chairman of MCMC, Puan Nur Sulyana Lim Abdullah, the learned Head of the International Affairs, Legal and Secretariat Division of MCMC, and Tuan Wan Faizul, the learned officer in charge of special project from Pemandu pertaining the issues of appointment of Orenda Kuantum Digital Sdn Bhd (Orenda Kuantum Digital) by direct negotiation. The said meeting was held in the Ministry of Information.
Yours truly did stress to the three of them that Orenda Kuantum Digital Sdn Bhd (Orenda Kuanttum Digital) is a dormant company from the date of its incorporation (18 October 2012) until now, HERE, and that the Ministry of Finance (MoF) had already rejected the appointment of Orenda Kuantum Digital Sdn Bhd (Orenda Kuantum Digital) by way of direct negotiation on two ocassions, HERE.
Of course, the two learned MCMC officers, who were handpicked to attend the said meeting, were in great pain trying to justify the unjustifiable appointment of a dormant company. Both of the said MCMC officers were trying to impress the meeting that MCMC has done a brilliant job in getting the proposed Programe Market Office (PMO) price reduced from RM95 million to RM73, 970, 820.00, which has been earlier published HERE. This was the best point for their justification.
Both of the MCMC officers did acknowledge that another company known as GES Consult has also submitted its proposal to provide the PMO at a price of RM10 million but it was rejected by MCMC.
To cut the long story short, Dato’ Ali and Puan Sulyana furnished the said meeting with three conditions under which MCMC chose to award the PMO for the remaining 11 streams of work to the dormant company, Orenda Kuanrum Digital, and they were as follows:
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it was due to “short of time” to switch over from analogue tv to digital tv, which has been awarded to Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd, had to be implemented between 2015 to 2017;
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Orenda Kuantum Digital has the specific expertise to oversee the National Digital TV Project; and
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Orenda Kuantum Digital could employ digital experts from UK and Italy.
You are the judge whether the above three points justify the appointment of the dormant Orenda Kuantum Digital?
Yours truly was not at all impressed with their so-called “justifications”. Yours truly reasserted that Orenda Kuantum Digital is a dormant company from the date of its incorporation in 2012 until now and that there was no track record for MCMC to evaluate.
The two officers from MCMC were in great pain in trying to justify the said appointment by re-emphasising that Orenda Kuantum Digital has the capabilities to employ expatriates from UK and Italy, who have the expertise to oversee Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd when it carries out the task of switching over from analogue tv to digital tv.
When yours truly told them that any dormant company in Malaysia could do the same things as Orenda Kuantum Digital i.e. to appoint expatriates to do the work for them if they are given the RM73 million contract, they were speechless.
Yours truly also told them that if the direct award of contract to Orenda Kuantum Digital was the first and only case in MCMC then it would have been a different matter altogether. But there are several cases of direct award of contract in MCMC, one of which was the direct appointment of Nuemera Sdn Bhd.
Nuemera Sdn Bhd’s appointment is for an initial period of five years and TO BE EXTENDED for a further five years (total 10 years) to provide Public Cellular Blocking Service System (“PCBS”) that enables the process of of blocking and unblocking of reported lost or stolen mobile access device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), HERE.
Yours truly also brought to the attention of the said two MCMC officers that at least three telcos namely, DIGI, MAXIS and CELCOM have protested against the appointment of the third party, Nuemera Sdn Bhd, to provide PCBS and to date they have not paid for the PCBS. It is strange that MCMC have been dutifully paying Nuemera Sdn Bhd for the PCBS.
The said two MCMC officers informed the meeting that they were not fully prepared to clarify about the direct appointment of Nuemera Sdn Bhd. However, Dato’ Ali Bin Hanafiah did confirm the appointment of Nuemera Sdn Bhd and that payments have been made by MCMC to Nuemera Sdn Bhd for the PCBS/IMEI. To be fair he did not confirm the total amount paid to Nuemera Sdn Bhd.
It was crystal clear that the two MCMC officers were mere emperor apologists and their so-called clarifications have raised more questions than answers.
Tuan Wan Faizul the officer in charge of special project in Pemandu did not participate much in the meeting except on the side issue of TM buying over a telco known as P1/Green Packet at a high price. He appeared to be unhappy when this issue was raised as an example.
Thank God that the above facts have been confirmed by the two very learned high ranking MCMC officers. In any event, yours truly never questioned any blogger operating under a pseudo name or rights to express his views on any issues in their write-ups/postings or writings because it is strictly none of yours truly business. However, of late there are one or two bloggers who seemed to be in the sudden state of “cacin kepanasan” even though yours truly did not make any reference about them in the previous four postings, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
Yours truly just wonder why were these strangers to the issues at hand felt the heat when yours truly is only questioning the direct award of contracts by the mighty officer in MCMC. Surely, they cannot be part of the special “defence team” for that mighty officer in MCMC. It just boggle the mind to witness such curious reactions from adults. Nevertheless, yours truly respect their democratic right to choose to be in the state of “cacin kepanasan” as and when new Parts of the story are published.
By the way, yesterday Utusan has published the story entitled “SKMM Digesa Jelaskan Perlantikan Nuemera”.
Stay tuned: Coming Soon / AKAN DATANG Part 6
