The Malaysian Insight

PUTRAJAYA dropped YTL Communications as an internet service provider to schools after discovering it had been hit by hidden charges, said Education Ministry Secretary-General Mohd Gazali Abas.

He said since the second phase of 1BestariNet started, YTL Communications never took on costs for telecommunications towers, and instead has charged the government RM41,881,384.98.

“The national audit report said the costs for the tower should have been borne by YTL. But when we negotiated with YTL, they did not want to (pay). Even after protracted negotiations, they refused,” he told a press conference today.

Gazali said YTL’s claim that it offered to pay for the cost of the internet service for the next six months was untrue.

 “To provide the Internet service, it may be free. But the costs of electricity, to erect the communications towers, the ministry pays for that,” he told reporters in Putrajaya today.

On Wednesday, YTL Communications said the ministry has reneged on its word to call an open tender for internet services to schools for the remaining half of this year.

It expressed surprise at the ministry’s recent appointment of telco competitors Telekom Malaysia, Celcom Axiata and Maxis to provide interim internet services to schools from July 1 till December.

“The ministry had excluded YTL Communications, reneged on its statement to call an open tender and agreed to pay for the internet services to the three appointed ISPs although we had offered the services for free,” YTL Communications.

“YTL Communications has invested more than RM4 billion building up the infrastructure in the schools for a 15 year project. It was our legitimate expectation that we would be given an extension of the contract into the next phase.”

The contract to TM, Celcom and Maxis will be reviewed on January 1, 2020, the ministry said in a statement today. 

YTL Communications Sdn Bhd’s contract to provide the service expired on June 30. 

“Give us a chance to evaluate a variety of options so that we can compare costs. Before this, there was no opportunity for a six-month trial,” Gazali said. 

He said YTL Communucations still provides the Frog VLE (virtual learning environment) service to schools. The government will pay RM1.02 million to the company during the interim period.

Gazali said the ministry is considering using Google Classroom, which is free. – July 5, 2019.