Volume 3 Issue 17: Intelligent Investing

Wash Your Dirty Underwear?

On 19 April 2011, we saw the announcement of the award of the 1Malaysia email project to Tricubes a GN3 company. I already talked a little bit about it here. In the initial report, it could not be any clearer that this is a fully government sanctioned project. I mean, how else is this possible:

All Malaysians who are 18 years old and above will be assigned an email account each in order to receive statements, bills and notices from the Government.

The initiative would allow direct and secure communication between the public and the Government, said Tricubes Bhd chief executive officer Khairun Zainal Mokhtar.

Clearly the government wishes to use it to communicate with the public. Because if the public wanted to communicate with the government, all it had to do was to publish an email address in the newspaper. I am sure anyone can send them an email from their current email address. They wouldn't need a 1Malaysia emaill address to do it.

Najib must have thought that it was a very smart idea to promote his 1Malaysia gimmick. There's nothing like free publicity. Paying RM50 million to tag everyone with his 1Malaysia brand would seem like a cheap price to pay.

But now, after he realizes how stupid his idea was, given the huge amount of public backlash against this project, we now see one of the faster backtrackings ever seen.

Both the Prime Minister and Pemandu even had to clarify within 24 hours that the e-mail service would not involve public funds as it was a private initiative proposed by Tricubes.

Today, Najib said the government would leave it to Tricubes to sell the email service to the public as his government is not in the business of promoting the private initiative.

Within two days, Najib has washed his hands off this dirty underwear and hung it out to dry. Now Tricubes is left out in the cold on its own to promote its 1Malaysia image. Why is a private company promoting a 1Malaysia email that is used to communicate with the government? Do you really think you can take the public for a ride?