Indian firms seek direct TM contracts

The MITCA group suggests that Telekom Malaysia place five of its members on its A List.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Indian Telecommunication Contractors Association (MITCA) has asked Telekom Malaysia (TM) to certify five of its members as qualified for direct contracts with the government linked company.

They are asking TM to list the five contractors under its JKH schedule. JKH is the Malay abbreviation for Price Rate Schedule. It is a certification for telco contractors and is similar to Class A in other businesses. It is a rule among government linked companies to offer direct contracts to these companies.

MITCA president P Puganeswaran said the association had seven members that were qualified for JKH certification.

“Why not allow five of them to have it?” he said at a conference held after MITCA representatives met TM’s chief procurement officer, Ghazali Harun, this morning.

MITCA’s secretary general, P. Punithan, noted that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had announced the liberalisation of 27 subsector industries and that telecommunications was one of them.

“The awarding of the certification should be liberalised too,” he said. “Why hold us back?”
Punithan is also the secretary general of MIC Youth.

Puganeswaran also complained that the government gave high speed broadband (HSBB) contracts only to Bumiputera companies. The total worth of current HSBB contracts is RM2.4 billion.

“A total of 63 contracts have been given to Bumiputera contractors,” he said. “Give us five. We don’t want the subcontractor status because we can do the entire job.”

He said the figure five would adequately reflect the proportion of Indians in the Malaysian population.

Puganeswaran said MITCA was seeking a meeting with Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim to discuss the issue. This would be a follow up to its meeting with Rais’s deputy, Maglin D Cruz, in July.