Business

Tuesday October 20, 2009

Khalid Ramli tipped to be MCMC chairman

By RISEN JAYASEELAN


PUTRAJAYA: Tan Sri Khalid Ramli, the former head of the Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) in the Prime Minister’s Department, has been made chairman of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), sources told StarBiz.

When contacted last Friday, Khalid did not deny the appointment but said he had yet to receive his letter of appointment. He declined to comment further.

Khalid will fill a vacancy left by Datuk Dr Halim Shafie, who retired in May.

Tan Sri Khalid Ramli says he has yet to receive his letter of appointment

The position of chairman of the MCMC will be a challenging one for Khalid, considering the wide role the regulator has. It will also thrust him into the limelight.

“Little is known of Khalid and we are left guessing the stance he will take as chairman (of MCMC),” the chief executive of a telecommunications company said.

Khalid, who retired from the ICU on Sept 24, is a career civil servant, having spent more than 20 years in government service.

He will have to first grapple with understanding the intricacies of the telecommunications, broadcasting and Internet industries. Of those, telecommunications is the biggest area, considering the amount of business activity involved.

And within that, Khalid will be thrown into a situation where the management of licences and telecommunications spectrum is a hotly-debated issue.

Industry players feel the MCMC has not been active enough in withdrawing allocated licences and telecommunications spectra from companies that have not deployed equipment and services as promised.

Khalid’s predecessor Halim had been criticised for being too soft.

Strictly speaking, the MCMC should be independent of the ministry that governs the sector, which is now called the Information, Communications and Culture Ministry. In the past speculation had been rife that the ministry had influenced decision-making in the MCMC.

Khalid will also have to face critics of the MCMC who believe that the regulator has a tendency to favour incumbent Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), which is majority owned by the Government.

An often-contentious issue is with regard to making sure TM offers the usage of its existing networks to third parties to ride on and to do so under fair terms.

The MCMC is also at the centre of the Government’s hope to have at least 50% of households broadband-enabled by the end of next year.

A key role towards this would be the disbursement from the estimated RM3bil the MCMC has collected from telecommunications operators over the years into what is called the universal service provision fund.

Khalid should have his hands full in making sure this money is well spent to achieve the fund’s goal of providing connectivity to rural areas.

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