By Ida Lim
KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 — Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi yesterday said that he will reject the WWW 69 vehicle registration number which a car dealer won for RM30,000 by misusing his identity, the Sin Chew Daily reported today.
Puad said he will wait for the letter of offer (surat tawaran) for the WWW 69 number from the Road Transport Department (RTD) before rejecting it.
He said the car dealer will lose the deposit of RM15,000 and this will be a lesson to the dealer, saying that RTD will then release the number for bidding again.
“I have previously already denied bidding for this car plate. The car dealer’s person-in-charge has already openly admitted their mistake and apologised to me,” he was quoted as saying by the Chinese daily.
Puad (picture) said he would let the police investigate and decide whether to take action against the car dealer.
Asked how the car dealer had obtained his personal information needed to make a bid, he said every MP receives one approved permit (AP).
According to Sin Chew, he had sold his AP like many other MPs, and the car dealer might have obtained his personal details because of that.
An AP is needed to import cars into the country.
Puad said his existing car number was won through a bid in the range of RM400 to RM500, and it was not possible that he would spend RM30,000 to bid for a car number.
Late last month, the car dealer, Syarikat Noble Twin (M) Sdn Bhd, had admitted making a mistake in bidding for WWW 69 using Puad’s name, according to the New Straits Times.
“Our runner was to have tendered the number plate under a different customer’s name. He made the mistake because he had to make tenders for several customers just before the closing time at noon on May 14,” the company’s general manager of sales, Ahmad Azmi Noordin, was quoted as saying.
“We wish to confirm that Puad had not, at any time, instructed us to make any tender for whatever number plate. We also wish to apologise to him for our mistake and the difficulties endured as a result.”
Puad was earlier reported to be surprised that the winning bidder for WWW 69 had the same name and an identity card number as him.
Thousands of people had thronged the three Kuala Lumpur RTD branches to place their bids for the coveted WWW plates.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had come under public scrutiny for the WWW 15 number that costs RM 24,200, which he surrendered yesterday.
The Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail Sultan Iskandar, beat close to 10,000 bidders to win the tender for the vehicle number WWW 1, with the record-setting bid of RM520,000.