ASIA Mobility Technologies Sdn Bhd, the company linked to Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh’s husband Ramachandran Muniandy, has clarified that an open tender in a highly specialised new service with only two qualified companies in Malaysia would have created a monopoly situation in the Selangor state.
Such situation would then stifle competitiveness and robbed the opportunity for the state to pilot the Demand-Responsive Transit (DRT) service for the public in a real-world setting or to assess the performance of the service providers over a reasonable period of time.
As such, the project was offered to both companies – the other being Badan Bas Coach Sdn Bhd – to prove themselves in the designing of a new service for the state which is arguably the first of its kind state-programme in Southeast Asia.
“It must be noted that the appointment is only for a period of nine months but required extensive investment from both service providers in terms of procuring vehicles, hiring drivers and continuous optimisation and development of the technology that powered the service,” Asia Mobiliti pointed out in a media statement.
“The success of the Selangor Mobility programme has also led to Prasarana and the Transport Ministry announcing the adoption of DRT as a replacement for conventional feeder bus services with RapidKL running a wildly successful pilot in May 2023 with Trek Rides in UM (Universiti Malaya)-Bangsar South which we continue to operate independently.
As a company committed to its responsibilities towards its clients and shareholders, the Malaysia Digital (MD)-status company farther warned that it takes recent accusations seriously and will exercise its legal options where necessary in safeguarding its reputation and credibility.
This comes about as the company claimed that it has found itself being subject to online campaign by certain unidentified parties that have casted doubts on the process by which it was appointed by the Selangor state government to operate the DRT service for the public.
“We view this as an unsubstantiated attack against a Malaysian technology start-up,” noted Asia Mobility which is jointly founded in 2018 by Premesh Chandran and Ramachandran (Yeoh’s husband).
“We regularly bid for tenders and like any other competitive business, we are successful with some and not so successful with others. Being a highly transparent and ethical business which is an extension of the personal values of our co-founders, we abhor collusion and anti-competitive practices by any party, especially government agencies and corporates.” – May 27, 2024
