The Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) has urged the auditor-general to investigate the Road Transport Department’s (RTD) practice of selling the rights to offer vanity car number plates to third parties.

This came after the National Affirmative Action Movement Foundation (Naam) bought the rights to sell car licence plates that start with ‘NAAM’ from the RTD for RM1 million, through direct negotiation.

“We urge the auditor-general to look into these deals. How does RTD decide on the applications?

“Were public funds involved? How were the open tender bids circumvented?” C4 executive director Cynthia Gabriel (photo) told Malaysiakini when contacted yesterday.

She was commenting on the Malaysiakini report on Monday on how Naam and other politically connected groups had obtained rights to sell vanity car plates without bidding for those rights though an open tender.

Instead, the rights were bought for about RM1 million in each instance, subject to the RTD’s approval.

Naam is headed by Deputy Youth Minister and MIC leader M Saravanan, which some argued raises the potential conflict of interest.

Cynthia said Naam should disclose the reason it is selling the plates.

“If Naam is using this to raise funds, then it is untenable as there is the issue of conflict of interest at stake,” she said.

She added that the use of direct negotiations also offers ripe opportunities for corruption.

Cynthia also argued that the practice of offering organisations the opportunity to sell vanity car number plates should stop.

“These should not even be necessary in the first place. Who does it benefit?” she said when asked how should the RTD handle requests to sell these vanity plates.