INDEPENDENT publishers who have waited three years for payment have demanded that Putrajaya take responsibility for Kedai Buku 1Malaysia’s (KB1M) debts and pay up.

They asked the government to take proactive action to solve their financial woes and have even formed a committee to ensure that their demands are heard.

It is not enough for the Finance Ministry to say that the Malaysian Institute of Translation and Books (ITBM), which managed the failed KB1M outlets, has yet to receive the RM1 million that MPH Group Malaysia Sdn Bhd has agreed to pay for joint liability, they said.

ITBM is saddled with RM3 million debts that were accrued by the brainchild of former prime minister Najib Razak.

KB1M, established in 2012 by project partner MPH Group Malaysia, had run into financial difficulties about two years ago and shut down. It owes several publishing houses payment for books.

“We were not aware of MPH Group Malaysia being responsible for any of the debts,” said the debt recovery committee chairman Arief Hakim Sani Rahmat.

The committee has 17 members who are jointly owed RM1.4 million by KB1M.

Earlier this week, the Finance Ministry in a letter to the committee explained that the KB1M was a joint-venture project between ITBM and MPH.

The January 14 letter sighted by The Malaysian Insight states that MPH has officially agreed to settle the debts that stood at RM2.8 million as of March 31 last year

The agreement was reached after a discussion last February 14 between ITBM, MPH and the Education Ministry, which administers ITMB, the letter states.

Arief said the Finance Ministry’s letter has not resolved the issue of settlement but merely set down the background and debt position of KB1M.

“We want a comprehensive solution. The government’s answer is very vague and unclear,” he said.

“We hope the government will engage in a discussion with us on how to settle the issue.

“The government should have a repayment schedule to ease the financial burden of the affected publishers.”

The Malaysian Insight is awaiting a response from MPH to a request for comment.

The Malaysian Insight last year reported that KB1M owed millions of ringgit to several small book publishing companies, almost a year after the bookstore was shuttered.

Najib launched KB1M on September 2012 as an initiative to enable people to buy cheaper books and other reading material.

There were five KB1M branches, four of them in the urban transformation centres of Ipoh, Kuantan, Alor Setar ,and Gong Badak, and the fifth in the ITBM office in Kuala Lumpur.

The venture suffered crippling losses and the branches closed one by one. The last to fold was the ITBM branch, in December last year.

Acting ITBM managing director, Sakri Abdullah had then told The Malaysian Insight that he had met several times with Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik to discuss settlement of the debts.

He also said ITBM had applied for a RM3 million loan from the previous Barisan Nasional government to pay its RM2.8 million debts.

Arief, meanwhile, said the publishers will meet soon to map out the next course of action.

“We are very hopeful that this can be resolved soon,” he said, adding that the payments owed are for books supplied to KB1M until 2016.

“I do not know how they (KB1M) managed the finances,” he said. – January 19, 2019.