Power Play & Lobbying going on in Telekom Malaysia?

The recent developments in Telekom Malaysia (TM) shows that the company and its board of directors are undecided on its CEO. More importantly, the corporate communication team appears to be clueless on what’s happening in the company.

This is my opinion.

Its been a year since Datuk Seri Mohammed Shazalli Ramly, the previous MD and group CEO resigned. Until today, TM still can’t appoint a new, non-“acting”, real CEO despite it has over 27,000 strong bloated workforce.

TM is currently lead by Imri Mokthar, acting as a CEO, but not a real CEO though.

Imri is also a real Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TM.

Yesterday, Telekom Malaysia (TM) corporate communication team, lead by Izlyn Ramli, said in an announcement that its board of directors had recommended the appointment of current acting CEO Imri Mokhtar as its managing director (MD) and CEO to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on 28 February 2019. The MoF is a “special shareholder” of TM.

The announcement also said that TM chairman Rosli Man had informed the board and deferred the CEO appointment at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in early March 2019.

In what appears to be a twist today, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng was reported saying, “I have not received any orders from the PM to change either the chairman or the CEO. So, for the MoF (Ministry of Finance), the chairman and CEO are still the same people (Imri Mokhtar).

“If there are changes to be made, a letter or note should come from the PM himself. I hope this is clear,” Lim said.

“For the MoF, we act according to orders from the PM,” he added.

Here’s how the scenario likely played out:

TM Board to MoF: #KhabarBaik We are appointing Imri as MD and CEO.

TM Chairman to Board: Wait…wait, I got direction from PMO, we can’t appoint Imri yet.

TM Shareholders during AGM: *chaos* When are you guys appointing a new CEO?!!

*Certain Dungus then issued a statement to say that the appointment of a new CEO had to go through due process with its controlling shareholders and the board. PMO wants to defer the CEO appointment.

MoF: What’s going on? We take orders directly from PM, no one told us about deferring the CEO appointment.

Dungus goes like…………….krik….. krik…. krik……

Imri: *Undecided Future, should I stay or resign…* #KhabarTakBaik

In TheStar report (link- subscription required to view the story) written by B.K Sidhu today, she wrote “There is some serious level of ‘power play’ and lobbying going on. It is anyone’s guess if Imri would get the CEO’s job and whether Rosli would stay on,” quoting a source.

“As soon as Rosli took over as chairman, he asked for various forensic audits. This obviously did not go down well with some executives within TM,” says one source.

Another source reckons that there could be former top executives of TM backing the current senior management team to seek a change in the chairman’s position of TM.

So, is there’s a war going on in Telekom Malaysia: Senior Management Team vs the Chairman.

Rosli Man is not new in the Telco industry. Now 65 years old, he has more than 32 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Rosli resigned as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) in 2008, first joined Jabatan Telekom Malaysia in 1976 as Assistant Controller (worked on ATUR 450) and was instrumental in setting up the then Celcom (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (formerly STM Cellular Communications).

According to the report, two possible candidates for the CEO position are being considered by Rosli. They are believed to be Burhanuddin Yusof (formerly from Celcom Axiata) and Noor Kamarul Anuar Nuruddin (formerly Celcom Axiata’s CTO).”

The report also claims that “Dr Farid Mohamad Sani (age 43), TM‘s current director representing Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s 26% interest in TM, has been bandied around as a potential candidate for the CEO’s post.” Dr Farid is currently the Head of Telecommunications, Investments in Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah).

If the Pakatan Harapan Government is really serious about changes in TM, then a fresh new leadership is needed in Telekom Malaysia. Obviously, for this change to happen, we need someone who is NOT from within TM.

In my opinion, TM is the reason why our broadband industry suck big time. For starters, there’s an issue with Unifi broadband availability out there.

Here’s a scenario: There’s 500 Streamyx customers living in a condo. When TM installed Unifi (HSBB), only 100 ports are installed and made available. In this case, only 100 Streamyx customers could upgrade to Unifi while the remaining 400 Streamyx customers will have to pay a higher monthly fee and super slow Internet speed. How is this fair to customers?

At the moment, TM has got some 500k Streamyx customers who are paying a minimum RM110/month for speeds starting from as slow as 1Mbps. In comparison, selected existing Unifi customers gets to enjoy 30Mbps at just RM89/month!

And if you live in an old condominium, TM customer service says that you can only get a 30Mbps connection with just 60GB quota.

From its lousy customer service, service outages, expensive broadband plans, here’s my message, quoting The Mandarin from Iron Man 3:

“So run away, hide, kiss your children goodbye. Because nothing, not your army, not your red, white, and blue attack dog, can save you.”

And we shall remember these names for whatever that happens next in TM.

The current Board of Directors in TM:

• ROSLI BIN MAN​: Non-Independent Non-Executive Chairman
• DATO’ ASRI HAMIDIN@ HAMIDON: Independent Non-Executive Director
• DR. FARID BIN MOHAMED SANI: Non-Independent Non-Executive Director​
• DATO’ MOHD NAIM DARUWISH: Non-Independent Non-Executive Director
• DATUK ZALEKHA HASSAN: Senior Independent Non-Executive Director (SID)
• TUNKU AFWIDA TUNKU DATO’ A.MALEK​: Independent Non-Executive Director
• BALASINGHAM A. NAMASIWAYAM: Independent Non-Executive Director
• HISHAM ZAINAL MOKHTAR: Independent Non-Executive Director
• SAHERAN SUHENDRAN: Independent Non-Executive Director
• FAISAL @ PISAL ABDUL GHANI: Non-Independent Non-Executive Alternate Director

TM Senior Management Team:

• IMRI MOKHTAR: Acting Group CEO
• HAZIMI KASSIM: Chief Internal Auditor
• HAMIZAH ABIDIN: General Manager, Group Company Secretary
• IMRI MOKHTAR: Chief Operating Officer (COO)
• JOEY ARIFFIN JOHAN: Acting Chief Strategy Officer
• AHMAD ISMAIL: Chief Corporate Regulatory Officer
• NOR FADHILAH MOHD ALI: Group Chief Financial Officer
• MOHD FARID SHAH MOHD BASIR: Chief Human Capital Officer
• MOHAMAD BIN MOHAMAD ZAIN: Chief Procurement Officer
• IZLYN RAMLI: Vice President Group, Brand & Communication
• MOHARMUSTAQEEM MOHAMMED: Chief Executive Officer webe Digital Sdn Bhd (webe), (covering unifi portfolio)
• Ir Ts AZIZI A HADI: Executive Vice President, TM ONE
• ASMAWATI YUSOF: Acting Chief Technology & Innovation Officer
• AMAR HUZAIMI MD DERIS: Executive Vice President, TM GLOBAL

This is a personal opinion and does not represent the view of MalaysiaInternet.

scamboy used to be a TM Unifi customers years ago. He currently has 500Mbps fibre broadband in his home powered by TIME dotcom, and is super satisfied with the quality, speed and price. He wanted a secondary broadband connection in his condo in KL, but can’t sign up for Unifi or Maxis Fibre because there’s no port!  Its 2019, but TM & its people are still living in the 2009 era.