It was reported that the ‘Patriot 1’ car number plate went for a sky-high bid of RM1,308,000 to take honour as the most expensive number plate in the country.
Not only that, according to the website of Yayasan Patriot Negara Malaysia, 34 car number plates between “Patriot 1” to “Patriot 1000” have been sold, and the total bid of these number plates were RM1,637,100.
The foundation secured the rights to sell the vanity number plates from “Patriot 1” to “Patriot 9999”for RM1 million. It is surprising but also not so surprising that they managed to recover their cost by selling merely 1 number plate.
YPN had targeted a profit of between RM10 million and RM15 million. If these number plates were auctioned off by the Road Transport Department, these profits would belong to all Malaysians. However, these monies now go to an obscure NGO that we hardly know. It is definitely a loss of all taxpayers.
According to news reports, YPN was commissioned by RTD to conduct the auction. Proceeds from which are to be used by YPN to promote “patriotism”. However, YPN was not a government agencies, who is there to supervise its spending?
As such, I urge Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai to declassify the agreement between Ministry of Transport and YPN. Is there any mechanism established in the agreement to ensure that the profit from auctioning the number plates will all go back to the people and each cent will receive its maximum value?
If Liow Tiong Lai cannot guarantee that the proceeds will all be used wisely for the people, then his salary as a minister should be deducted until the loss suffered by the people is recovered.