PUTRAJAYA will now keep production contracts for Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) after cancelling them earlier, saving most of the companies from going bankrupt. 

The contracts had been awarded to scores of local production houses by RTM during the previous Najib administration under a pitching system.

But when it took over, the new Pakatan Harapan government announced that all government work must be awarded through an open-tender process, putting all those contracts under the chopping block.  

Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said he wrote to the Finance Ministry to seek exemptions for those contracts.

“I wrote to the finance minister (Lim Guan Eng) on Friday. He is agreeable to it and we are looking at exemptions for RTM,” Gobind told The Malaysian Insight.

Malaysian Film Producers Association (PFM) president Norman Abdul Halim revealed that more than 100 contracts between RTM and local production houses faced cancellation following Putrajaya’s earlier directive.   

This was because the Finance Ministry on May 17 suspended all procurement for government contracts, pending a review.

Norman then met with officials from the ministry and the Finance Ministry to request that RTM be exempted from the open-tender system for contracts with the creative industry.

“We explained the pitching system to the minister and he agreed that contracts with the creative industry were unique,” Norman, the CEO of KRU Studios, told The Malaysian Insight.   

“The minister agreed that these contracts are not the same as the ones for a road or a building,” said Norman, whose production house was behind the film Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa and animation series Ribbit.

Norman said all production houses adhered to RTM’s programming fees.

RTM pays between RM20,000 and RM25,000 for 30-minute shows and between RM40,000 and RM45,000 for 60-minute shows.

Norman added that he had also asked the government to revise RTM’s fees which have been the same for the past 30 years.

“We have to review these fees so that we can grow the creative industry.” – July 16, 2018.