The management of Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia wants to meet with the Education Ministry to find out why it cancelled its subscription of the newspaper.
Utusan Group executive chairperson Abd Aziz Sheik Fadzir said, however, that the company is yet to receive an official notification from the ministry on the matter.
"We have not received any order from the ministry, but according to the marketing side, it is only the Education Ministry in Putrajaya which has stopped its subscription.
“The other (branches) have yet to receive instructions to cease subscriptions. For instance, programmes in schools are through sponsorships,” he told Malaysiakini.
"We (the Utusan management) will meet the ministry to seek further explanation the order. I want to meet the ministry to really understand the basis behind the decision.
"This is because it will definitely impact (sales). So we want to meet the ministry to learn why the decision was taken," he added.
Ab Aziz was responding to a July 18 memo, in which Education Minister Maszlee Malik was quoted as instructing all the ministry’s subscriptions to Utusan be halted immediately.
A ministry official later told Malaysiakini that the ministry was also considering cancelling its subscriptions to other newspapers as a cost-cutting measure.
However, Maszlee has said he was unaware of the memo itself, and would check with his special adviser Wan Saiful Wan Jan, who issued the document.
He also refused to comment on whether other newspapers would meet the same fate as Utusan.
Former Utusan editor-in-chief Zainuddin Maidin later took to Twitter to laud the ministry’s move, because the newspaper "is not the voice of the rakyat but an official mouthpiece for the racist Umno." - Mkini
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