KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Education (MoE) plans to continue with contractor YTL Communications Sdn Bhd despite the many shortcomings  of the RM4.1 billion 1BestariNet project, said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“We found that there are many weaknesses at the planning stage that caused the implementation of the project to be poorly executed,” PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed (pic) told a press conference yesterday after meeting with officials from the MoE.

“It shouldn’t be continued, but it’s up to the ministry to decide,” he added.

Despite the shortcomings of the project in its first phase, Nur Jazlan said the MoE had informed the PAC of its decision to continue with YTL as contractor.

Yesterday’s meeting between PAC and MoE officials was after irregularities and concerns were raised by the 2013 Auditor-General’s Report on 1BestariNet.

Nur Jazlan said the MoE will be making the necessary adjustments to improve the project’s implementation and user experience, with the project due to begin its second phase as planned.

So far, the MoE has paid YTL Communications RM663 million, he said, noting that the RM4.077 billion project involving 10,000 schools is expected to take 15 years to complete.

Bukit Bendera Member of Parliament Zairil Khir Johari in a statement yesterday said the Auditor-General’s Report had revealed a string of irregularities and non-conformance in the implementation of the project.

He said the complete roll-out of the 4G Internet broadband infrastructure was to have been completed by March 30, 2013, but only 59.3%, or 6,092 schools, received it.

Zairil also noted that 88.9% of the project had been completed by June 12, 2014, still short of the contracted target.

He also said the audit report stated that the project suffered from a lack of value management, failure to obtain technical approvals from the MoE and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit, as well as the failure to conduct an assessment of school needs before installation of the infrastructure.

As a result, 58% of 501 schools surveyed by the National Audit Department reported that the 1BestariNet service did not cover the entire school compound, even though it was contractually obligated to do so, he added.

Zairil also said only 89.1% of the 46 schools tested and 70.3% of the 491 survey respondents revealed that broadband speeds averaged between only 0.2Mbps and 3.62Mbps, far lower than the contractually promised 4Mbps to 20Mbps.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 18, 2015.