Kuala Lumpur, 11 December 2020 –The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) applauds the efforts of several Members of Parliament, particularly the MPs of Tuaran, Petaling Jaya, Kuantan, Lembah Pantai, and Jerlun in attempting to entirely cut the RM85.5 million allocation for JASA (or the renamed J-KOM) in the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia’s 2021 Budget. Unfortunately, the government’s motion for this allocation to reduce it to RM40.5 million, won the vote.

“We regret the government’s decision to maintain and expand J-KOM, and to allocate a substantial portion of the budget to it. The government has a myriad of agencies that perform J-KOM’s functions such as the Jabatan Penerangan Malaysia (JPEN), Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), corporate communications divisions in each ministry, as well as MAMPU’s Government Unified Communications (MyGovUC) unit,” Tricia Yeoh, IDEAS CEO, commented. In short, there are more than sufficient communication units across the existing government ecosystem that exist, which the government can depend on to communicate its government policies and programmes.

“The government seems to have forgotten its own priorities. In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance said that the primary focus of the 2021 budget is to protect rakyat’s well-being and the country’s economy”, said Yeoh. “Reviving an agency with a questionable track record is not consistent with this focus.”

With the motion passed yesterday, J-KOM is officially allocated a sizable amount of RM 40.5 million. “This is quite a substantial allocation. In 2017, JASA was only allocated RM22.8 Million. Even though the allocation was cut in the current budget, the unit technically has more allocation than before,” Yeoh added.

“Finally, I urge the Ministry of Finance to provide a transparent and publicly available audit of all funds spent by J-KOM. Parliament should scrutinise J-KOM’s activities and expenditure throughout the year, which would ensure allocations are not misused for political purposes”, Tricia concluded.

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For media enquiries, please contact Sri Murniati, unie@ideas.org.my.