The IT company, which is currently in danger of being delisted from Bursa Malaysia for financial irregularities, said a slew of value-added services will be enough to pay for the total RM50 million outlay at no cost to the government or the public.
Tricubes chief executive officer Khairun Zainal Mokhtar stressed that the government will not be able to monitor the contents of the email accounts.
The myemail.my service will threaten Pos Malaysia Berhad’s postal services for the Employees Provident Fund and Internal Revenue Board. Credit card firms and online portals, such as myeg.com.my, already provide payment facilities for such services.
“Our base service will be email services at no cost to users,” Tricubes chief executive officer Khairun Zainal Mokhtar said in a statement.
He also explained that Tricubes had fallen into Guidance Note (GN3) due to heavy investment in research and development that had “a long gestation period and is well on the way to generating returns to recoup the investment.”
But he did not provide any detail as to the nature of the company's research work.
Khairun said the email service would be secure as it involves authentication with the government-issued MyKad identity card.
Tricubes is involved in providing mobile devices for authenticating MyKads but Khairun did not explain how an email user would verify his MyKad apart from using the card's registration number.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced yesterday Tricubes will invest RM50 million for the service but since then, concerns have arisen over the company's financial health.
The little-known ACE-listed company triggered Bursa Malaysia Securities’ GN3, paragraph 2.1(f) last year when auditors “expressed a modified opinion with emphasis on Tricubes’ going concern in the latest audited financial statements for the financial year ended March 31, 2010”, according to a filing made by Tricubes on October 29, 2010.
The same filing stated: “If the Company fails to comply with any part of its obligations indicated above, Bursa Securities shall: suspend the trading of the Company’s listed securities on the next market day after five market days from the date of notification of suspension by Bursa Securities; and delist the Company subject to the Company’s right to appeal against the delisting under Rule 8.04(6) of the ACE LR.”
Tricubes had earlier tried but failed to get a waiver from Bursa Securities to comply with the GN3 requirements.
As a GN3 company, Tricubes has to submit and implement a regularisation plan; appoint a sponsor until it is no longer deemed a GN3 company; retain the services of a sponsor for three full financial years after the company is no longer considered a GN3 company; and announce the status of its regularisation plan monthly.
Tricubes’ latest filing to Bursa Malaysia on April 1 indicates that it is still in the process of regularising its finances.
Khairun explained a GN3 company is still allowed by Bursa Malaysia to continue its business activities while regularising its financial standing.
“Tricubes has achieved its first milestone in its regularisation plan set by Bursa Malaysia, with the appointment of its sponsor, M&A Securities Sdn Bhd, in January 2011. The sponsor is expected to submit the company’s regularisation plan to Bursa Malaysia and obtain its approval no later than 29 October 2011,” he said in a five-page statement that covered 18 questions.
He said the company had shown its ability to generate funding for this project, and the government’s evaluation team had met with Bursa Malaysia to clarify Tricubes’ GN3 status prior to making its final selection.
Khairun also reiterated that the “government is neither funding nor underwriting this project. This is a 100 per cent privately-funded project.”
He confirmed that the project’s KPI was to have 100 per cent of Malaysians aged 18 and over subscribe to MyEmail but insisted that participation was still voluntary.
“Any project, public or private, must have KPIs and targets for performance monitoring and accountability. It does not mean that Malaysians will be assigned to the service,” he said.
Khairun said that a major consideration during the evaluation was also the need to ensure security, confidentiality and authentication of the user, and Tricubes has met or surpassed these benchmarks.
He added that the government will not be able to monitor the contents of the email accounts, and Tricubes and Microsoft, whose Windows Live platform will power the project, “are working closely to make sure the integrity and the confidentiality of users are ensured.”
