Three companies selected to compete with Puspakom in motor vehicle inspection have raised eyebrows, with critics pointing to a conflict of interest in one of them.
The Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced that Wawasan Bintang, Pakatan Petroleum, and Beriman Gold had been appointed to break Puspakom's three-decade-old monopoly. Puspakom is a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom.
But a check on their SSM by a Pas man Nurul Islam revealed that Wawasan Bintang for example, is only eight months old and had no proven track record. The company has not filed their financial statement and audit report.
Pakatan Petroleum was involved in petroleum and gas while Beriman Gold has a nature of business involving construction works, telecommunications and IT.
In response, Minister of Transport Anthony Loke said that no companies have experience handling vehicle inspections as Puspakom monopolized the industry.
Nurul retorted and said that according to the guideline by JPJ on the requirements, rules, procedures and regulations of such licenses, JPJ and MOT expect license holders to possess internal expertise in the relevant service field and be capable of developing a standard/ procedure for internal inspections based on current laws and regulations set by JPJ, as well as a record of experience related to or similar to this project.
A deeper scrutiny was done by Aliff Ahmad, founder of Scrut, a platform for the public to check on vehicle conditions before making a purchase, on the three companies.
"As for Pakatan Petroleum Sdn Bhd, I have no idea whether it's an SPV or something else. Every name and company under it is linked to YTL. If a YTL subsidiary merges with another YTL subsidiary, does that count as an SPV too? I’m just going to assume Pakatan Petroleum belongs to YTL.
Its shareholder, Quarry Ventures Holding Sdn Bhd, must have plenty of cement and dump trucks. Makes inspections a breeze, right? No conflict of interest here?" he said.
He recalled that MOT awarded a monopoly to a company, Handal Ceria Sdn Bhd to distribute EV plates. Aliff added that the company's director is someone named Rozlan Abu Bakar, who is related to Noriah Mohd Said of Wawasan Bintang.
Upon further checking. Rozlan is a director at Handal Indah Sdn Bhd, a bus provider company at Causeway Link in Johor.
This could raise another potential conflict of interest where a transportation company is linked to a company that will do inspections of vehicles.
Najib loyalist, Eric See-To who writes under the pseudonym Lim Sian See, offered an alternative by taking over Puspakom's assets and operations from private ownership after the concession ends.
"Since the company already has extensive branches, a trained workforce and a proven operational system, the owners of Puspakom would prefer to sell their assets rather than bear the costs of compensation and losses when their concession expires.
“Rather than starting again with private players, the government could instead continue using the existing infra while making improvements," he said.
He also suggested that Puspakom's assets and operations be sold to publicly-owned funds such as KWSP, Tabung Haji or LTAT, where service rates could be regulated to remain affordable, while revenue could be channelled back to contributors and investors.
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