KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 — Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin joined netizens today in their Twitter rampage against the 1 Malaysia e-mail project, calling a Pemandu official a “little Napoleon” for saying the government would have to pay for the service.
The Rembau MP questioned the validity of the official’s statement, made on radio station BFM yesterday, pointing out that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had already declared that the project was a private initiative.
Claiming he was “defending” Najib, Khairy said on his Twitter feed, “Why is everyone saying Govt will have to pay 50sen for each email sent from 1Msia email? PM has already said private initiative/investment.”
He then added, “Apparently this is what some Pemandu guy said on @BFMradio. Doubt he knows what he’s talking about. PM already said no govt funds used.”
During the radio interview yesterday, business services NKEA communications content and infrastructure director, Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, had said the government would pay concessionaire Tricubes Bhd about 50 sen per e-mail for the project.
Fadhlullah, who is also the general manager of TM Net’s corporate and strategy services, reasoned that the fee was cheaper than the RM1 printing, stationery, postage and dispatch cost of sending a regular letter, adding that the cost of regular mail could even double to RM2 if a misaddressed letter was sent back on the taxpayer’s dime.
“The poor taxpayer, without realising, is actually allowing wastage of RM2 per post that goes out,” Fadhlullah had said.
Khairy’s words on the microblogging site this evening triggered several responses from other Twitter users, who questioned if the Umno leader was discrediting the statement.
A user with the Twitter handle “Aisehman” said, “so you saying he’s not telling the truth? read the story here -> http://bit.ly/fT9v8K.” The link directs users to The Malaysian Insider’s article on the interview with Fadhlullah published yesterday.
In response, Khairy retorted, “@Aisehman Apa dia tau? PM dah kata no govt money. Dia Little Napoleon kot.” (What does he know? PM has already said no govt money. He is a little Napoleon)
Another user, “abooarif”, tried to reason with Khairy by pointing out that government agencies currently pay POS Malaysia to deliver documents and would now just have to pay Tricubes for the e-mailed documents.
“@Khairykj So PM is right that Tricubes will have to market that service to govt agencies & the people coz it’s not compulsory for them to use.
“@Khairykj the 100% utilisation by 2015 KPI set on Tricubes does not make it compulsory. It just means if they don’t meet it they lose money,” said abboarif in two separate tweets.
But Khairy rebutted this, saying that documents delivered via the email service should be free. “Doesn’t make sense,” he added.
Abooarif proceeded then to explain that the payment was likely because the 1 Malaysia e-mail service was not an open system for universal users.
In response, Khairy said, “@abooarif Reason it out all you want, this one is as good as dead.”
He said the government merely needed to get Malaysians to register online with their existing emails and IC numbers, adding, “This is just stupid”.
Internet users nationwide expressed their disdain for the administration’s latest plan to reach out to Malaysians through the e-mail service the moment it was announced on Monday.
The hashtag “#1malaysiaemail” became the third most popular topic among Malaysian users on the network as of 5pm that day, with many users arguing that the government should put its time and money to better use.
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.
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