SELECT few will end becoming billionaires from the establishment of Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) at the expense of taxpayers, alleged blogger Ahirudin Attan, popularly known as Rocky Bru.
“Instead of assigning the 5G spectrum to multiple private mobile network operators such as Celcom and Maxis, Malaysia’s previous Government led by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin decided to go with a single wholesale network (SWN) approach.
“The talk in town is that five people will benefit from this, with hundreds of million in their accounts to last for at least five generations,” he claimed in his blog.
When Putrajaya decided to establish DNB to manage the 5G rollout in Malaysia, many quarters have raised questions on the lack of transparency on the matter and were shocked by the RM12 bil price tag.
Several politicians, including former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak warned that the Government could lose trillions of ringgit should DNB fail in its plans to roll out 5G to the whole country.
The Pekan MP then suggested for the Government to sell DNB stakes to local telecommunication players to ensure the 5G rollout is monitored and managed effectively.
“Telcos must be allowed to play an active role in managing and monitoring DNB so that the 5G infrastructure can be better implemented,” Najib was reported saying.
However, the Government had yet to decide on Najib’s suggestion to date.
Touching on the matter, Ahiruddin said that according to GSM Association’s intelligence, only three 5G networks in the world have been rolled out so far, with other markets beset by slow progress, delays or cancelled launches.
He also said that many nations such as Kenya, Russia and South Africa has abandoned the SWN model due to various problems related to it and decided to auction their 5G rollout instead.
“The Thais, for example, raised US$3.2 bil from their auction exercises recently. The Canadian spectrum auction raised a whopping US$8.9 bil.
“Singapore and the US are also expected to earn billions of dollars from selling their 5G spectrums via open tenders, not SWN,” Ahiruddin noted.
Why spend when you can earn?
He also said it was puzzling that the Government was spending RM12 bil for the initiative, when an auction process to local telecommunication providers could have generated at least the same amount to the public coffers.
With that said, he urged PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Parti Warisan Sabah president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal to set aside their differences and get the Government to explain the matter to the public.
“Shafie was one of the early ones to raise the red flag on the DNB project.
“Instead of spending RM11 bil, the Semporna MP said the Government could easily earn RM12 bil from the 5G spectrum.
“Anwar also raised in the matter in July but didn’t follow through on it but it’s still not too late.
“Perhaps Shafie and he should set aside their differences for once, work together and stop this highly-suspicious 5G nightmare from happening and press Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to review the whole thing,” Ahiruddin quipped.
On related matter, DAP central executive committee member Ronnie Liu urged the Pakatan Harapan leadership to press the Government to come clean on the project to ensure transparency.
He added that a Parliamentary Select Committee should be established to scrutinise DNB, adding it was the MPs duty to serve as check and balance to projects involving taxpayers’ funds.
“I also agree with Najib’s idea in getting local telecommunication providers to purchase stocks of DNB to ensure the 5G roll out is done without any hiccups,” he told FocusM.
“Ultimately, we don’t want Malaysian consumers to end up forking-out money for something that doesn’t need payment, just so we can enrich a select group who are already wealthy,” remarked the Sungai Pelek state assemblyman. – Oct 25, 2021.
Pic credit: Malay Mail
