By Rosli Abidin Yahya
The planned corporatisation of the
Telecommunications Department (JTB), Ministry of Communication
which was supposed to take place last April 1 has been delayed
to another date.
A high-ranking officer at JTB
when contacted said the planned corporatisation of JTB had not
been taking place and the date has been moved forward.
"The corporatisation of
JTB has been suspended until further notice," he said.
The officer could not give the
exact new date of the planned corporatisation nor would he
reveal the reasons why JTB corporatisation had been moved
forward until further notice.
Even JTB employees were also in
the dark about the reasons for the suspension of JTB
corporatisation.
However, sources close to JTB
said there were many things that need to be sorted out before
corporatisation could finally take place.
It was announced earlier that
the corporatisation would take place on April 1 to form the
fully private-run TelBru.
A few weeks before the
corporatisation date of April 1, the countdown display at the
JTB building was removed.
This had caused speculations
that JTB may need to sort out more problems arising from the
corporatisation and the planned date would be moved forward.
JTB employs about 3,000
employees in several sections including the BruNet and eSpeed.
Prior to the April 1 dateline,
some of the key operations of JTB had been outsourced such as
installing them to the private sector.
During a staff-management
session held last month, various issues had been highlighted
such as employees' terms, conditions and benefits. Being a
government agency the employees had been enjoying privileges and
perks not available in the private sector.
JTB had also been utilising the
services of consultants to work on many aspects including legal
matters, accounting, organisational structure and employees'
terms and conditions.
Once corporatised, JTB would be
run by a board of directors but earlier on they had been talks
that perks such as free air tickets and allowances may need to
be sacrificed, causing many staff to be dissatisfied.
The staff were also said to be
confused about housing loans and benefits as well as the need
for them to work on Friday with Saturday and Sunday off.
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