Govt actually made profit from World Cup broadcast, Parliament told

PARLIAMENT | Putrajaya made a profit of RM3.3 million by broadcasting the World Cup 2018 on RTM, Parliament was told.

According to Aug 1, 2018, Hansard, then communications and multimedia minister Gobind Singh Deo told the House that the profit came from advertising and sponsorships for the broadcast.

The sum was then credited into the government's consolidated fund, he had said.

The Pakatan Harapan administration's decision to broadcast the tournament, which ran from June to July 2018, is currently under scrutiny after Finance Minister Zafrul Abdul Raziz released a purported list of 101 contracts awarded by the previous administration without open tender.

One of the contracts went to a company known as Sports Media & Distributor Sdn Bhd, the sole owner of the tournament's broadcasting rights in Malaysia, to the tune of RM29.9 million.

According to the Hansard, Gobind told Parliament that AirAsia Bhd was the "platinum" sponsor which forked out RM18 million while Maxis Bhd was the "gold" sponsor by shelling out RM12 million. Gobind was responding to a question from Pasir Mas MP Ahmad Fadhli Shaari who sought clarification on the broadcast cost.

The controversy over directly awarded contracts came about after Zafrul, in answering a question from Pulai MP Ahmad Mazlan, told Parliament that the Harapan administration saw 101 contracts awarded without open tender to the tune of RM6.61 billion.

This led to Perikatan Nasional figures accusing Harapan of failing to live up to its purported promise of not allowing any direct award contracts.

However, Harapan figures have countered by stating that Item 23 of its election manifesto had explicitly stated that the coalition intended to implement open tender processes as widely as possible to ensure transparency and never promised to eradicate direct awards.

Today, former finance minister Lim Guan Eng said a bulk of the RM6.61 billion mentioned by Zafrul actually was for contracts initiated by the previous BN administrations. - Mkini