Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil has urged the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to review the RM11 billion 5G network contract won by Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.
In a letter to the PAC last week, the PKR lawmaker said he had learned there were possible discrepancies in the terms of the contract which warrant an investigation.
"I was made to understand that there is a possibility that the contract terms at the bidding stage differed from the terms in the contract signed by DBN (Digital Nasional Bhd) and Ericsson.
“The Dewan Rakyat should have knowledge of this as it involves public interest and public funds,” he added.
This comes after the MACC told the MP it found no reason to suspect wrongdoing in the award by DNB.
Fahmi had urged MACC to probe the matter after the United States said Ericsson had breached a 2019 deal when it did not disclose misconduct in Iraq.
Among others, Ericsson was exposed to have committed misconduct when securing deals in countries like Iraq, China, Vietnam and Djibouti.
"As such, I urge the PAC to investigate the bidding terms of the actual contract, through a full briefing or by commencing a proceeding and calling up relevant parties as soon as possible," Fahmi said in the letter last week.
Deal secured by merit
Earlier, Ericsson said it had adhered to all standard procedures to secure the deal by merit through an open tender.
According to DNB, the deployment would be financed exclusively by the private sector with no public funding or development expenditure involved.
The Finance Ministry said up to January, DNB spent RM544 million as costs for the network infrastructure, hardware and capital.
This is funded by the RM1.7 billion raised in loans from financial institutions.
The Finance Ministry said the loans are not government-guaranteed and would be paid once the company receives income from its wholesale capacity sales.
DNB earlier said the rollout would cost RM20 billion over 10 years, funded by bank loans and sukuk. - Mkini
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