Media downplay another lucrative privatisation deal

Sometimes what is omitted by the media can be more important than what is included.

Another privatisation contract has been dished out and most Malaysians are none the wiser - thanks to the media, which have marginalised the news. The lucrative job of supervising medical checks on drivers of commercial vehicles has gone to one company - Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd.

The Star on 9 December parroted the official reason for this i.e. to curb corruption:

Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Azlan Sultan Abu Bakar said the appointment of one company was to curb fraud. He was replying to a question from Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin (BN – Jerai) who asked why the company was given the monopoly to handle the health checks.

It appears that only The Edge raised the alarm - and that too in a small snippet on page 82 of its 12 December 2005 edition.

The business weekly quite rightly asked in its Frankly Speaking column:

Now, how does awarding a contract to one company, which essentially gives it monopolistic powers, be able to achieve that? What one should be asking is, on what basis was the company given the job. Why only one company? What happened to open tender and transparency? Why not open it up to all clinics that are able to carry out medical checks?

It complained that the government was merely creating "another Fomema" - that other "lucky" monopolistic company supervising the medical checks of foreign workers. Interestingly enough, Fomema comes under the umbrella of Pantai Holdings Bhd.

The Edge added:

What's disturbing about the whole episode is we are creating another middleman when the government has time and again called for their role to be eradicated

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What's also disturbing is the media have on the whole not given this privatisation deal the prominence and coverage it deserves - to express public concern over the whole privatisation saga. The media should be pressing for more information such as the basis on which this deal was awarded to Syarikat Pantai Supreme Sdn Bhd. They should also disclose the company's shareholders/owners and directors as well as try and identify the politicians responsible for this latest "brainwave".