‘Unsubscribe’ Najib, Teresa Kok urges M’sians
Regina Lee
Mar 10, 11
1:29pm
Seputeh MP Teresa Kok is still fuming over Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s reply to a question in Parliament that the government spent RM63,000 on his recent “1Malaysia’ greetings to the people.
Calling the greetings ‘spam’, the DAP parliamentarian said she was stunned by the amount spent to send the “Salam 1Malaysia” emails to 1.25 million Malaysians.
“For all his purported use of Twitter and Facebook, Najib is neither IT-savvy nor cost-savvy. If he was, he would have recognised the insanity of paying the exorbitant price of 5 sen per email when the cost of sending email is negligible.
“Furthermore, the cost of email transmission does not multiply with every email address added,” Kok said in a statement this morning.
Batu Gajah MP Fong Po Kuan had asked Najib in parliament yesterday about the emails sent out to Malaysians early in February, together with Chinese New Year SMS greetings.
In his written reply, Najib said the four million SMSes sent out were provided free of charge by three telecommunications companies – DiGi Bhd, Maxis Bhd and Celcom Bhd – as part of their corporate social responsibility.
“This senseless spending is disgraceful, but hardly shocking, given the numerous cases of overpriced purchases, excessive spending and unfair contracts committed to by the government with Najib as both the finance minister and prime minister, conveniently enough for him.
Email delivery company based in the US
“I remind him that the budget that Najib the finance minister allocates to Najib the prime minister are not his personal funds, but the hard-earned money of Malaysian taxpayers intended for public services, which he must manage prudently to serve all Malaysians and not selected companies,” said Kok who is also Selangor DAP chairperson.
She also claimed that Najib had awarded the contract to send the emails to a third-party, Lyris Inc, which is a marketing technology company based in California.
There was no open tender process, but the name of the company hired can be seen by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link to the emails.
“I encourage all right-thinking Malaysians to click ‘unsubscribe’ on Najib’s unsolicited ‘Salam 1 Malaysia’ mailing list to save taxpayers’ money and to send a strong message of protest against the excessive spending on his trite, hollow and insincere 1Malaysia message,” she added.
Sending by SMS is better. More Instantaneous where else via email, these messages will high likely go to SPAM folder.
This way the message looks more authentic. Bill Gates purported send out many emails. But nobody believe it it actually from him. Since email cost money, the authentication is automatic since no fake people would want to spend such money via SMS.