PKR deputy president Azmin Ali said he and other opposition MPs wished to know why Dawama was unable to turn a profit despite the “huge concession” awarded to it by DBP to print school textbooks.
“And (if) they get a huge concession but could not turn a profit, that means the management should be let go and not the workers,” he told reporters after meeting with Dawama workers here.
Dawama last week ordered all 380 of its mainly Malay staff to take leave without pay indefinitely starting yesterday owing to financial difficulties.
It is understood that Dawama has cited its ongoing dispute with DBP — an agency under the Education Ministry — over school textbooks as reason for the action.
Dawama Workers Association president Zainal Awit said he was surprised to hear of the printer’s financial woes as the company was supposed to make a profit of up to RM60 million each year.
Azmin, who is also Gombak MP, today urged the government to return Dawama’s textbook concession to DBP and halt similar privatisation exercises, which he said only burdened workers when they invariably failed.
“Privatisation projects are meant to provide better service and ensure the welfare of workers… Instead, privatisation projects profit cronies within the administration while workers are sidelined and denied their rights,” he said.
“We’ve seen today that the workers become the victims, not the management. In all privatisation projects, management is protected.”
The Malaysian Insider reported in June that the crisis between DBP and Dawama could affect the supply of school textbooks for the 2012/13 term.
A source said the “cold war” had likely erupted after DBP appointed another party to print the textbooks, possibly offending Dawama, which holds a 12-year contract to print and market all books and magazines by DBP until 2014.
It is believed the bad blood between DBP and Dawama reached a critical level after DBP director Datuk Termuzi Abdul Aziz gave Dawama a deadline to buck up and overcome a decline in sales of DBP books and magazines over the past couple of years.
Originally known as Balai Pustaka, DBP is a government agency set up on June 22, 1956 with the purpose of pushing the Malay language as the national and official language of the country.
Based on previous media reports, DBP has recorded losses of between RM20 million and RM40 million every year since 2002.
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