19 NOVEMBER 2025
PRESS STATEMENT
The Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4 Center) expresses deep concern over the escalating controversy surrounding the Selangor Intelligent Parking (SIP) initiative, following the 17 November 2025 Malaysiakini report revealing that a member of the Selangor royal family, Raja Muda Tengku Amir Shah, holds a beneficial 16.5% stake in Selmax Sdn Bhd – the company awarded multiple SIP concessions.
Despite the significant public backlash surrounding the SIP initiative since July 2025, the Selangor state government has yet to provide a coherent and transparent explanation for the shifting concession structure, its evaluation criteria, or its decision to bring private concessionaires into an arrangement initially proposed to be fully managed by a state-owned entity. Instead, the public has been met with silence, deflection, and the use of secrecy laws to block public access to key documents.
A brief overview of key events is set out as follows:
- 9 July 2025: Selangor announces that Rantaian Mesra (a subsidiary of MBI Selangor) will collect parking fees across four local councils, with a 50–40–10 (Rantaian Mesra-Local Councils-MBI) revenue split, due to begin on 1 August 2025.
- 15 July 2025: Selangor walks back the 9 July announcement, stating that the concession will now be handled by three parties: local councils, Rantaian Mesra, and a private company. The start date of the concession is maintained at 1 August.
- August – September 2025: Selmax secures multiple long-term concessions (Subang Jaya, Shah Alam, and Selayang city councils). Petaling Jaya City Council refuses to sign due to “unresolved uncertainties.”
- Late October 2025: The state government blocks a Freedom of Information request, citing the Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1972 to withhold concession documents from the public.
- November 2025: The Raja Muda’s beneficial stake in Selmax is revealed through media checks – not through any state-initiated disclosure.
This sequence of events raises more questions than answers, particularly regarding the integrity of the procurement process, the management of conflicts of interest, and the use of secrecy provisions to suppress essential information. Chief among these are:
- Why was Selmax brought into the concession structure despite the initial plan placing operational responsibilities solely on a state-linked company?
- Were beneficial ownership interests – especially those involving members of the royal household – properly declared and evaluated?
- How can the public trust a procurement process where key documents are hidden by the OSA 1972?
- How were bidders assessed – and were all bidders competing on equal footing, given the influence of powerful individuals?
- Why has the state government not publicly justified the significant differences between its July announcements and Selmax’s subsequent Bursa filing?
Alarm bells raised over concession process
The first glaring cause for concern is the discrepancy between the announcements made by the Selangor state government made in July versus the eventual Bursa filing made by ITMAX on behalf of its subsidiary, Selmax, in early August.
What prompted the change in the form of concession agreement? While the initial agreement was also criticised for allowing MBI Selangor to collect a portion of the revenue for unexplained reasons, this current agreement replaces MBI Selangor with a third party private entity.
This context raises further questions. If Rantaian Mesra was initially poised to take on the implementation of the SIP alone, why was this revised to include another private entity?
Suspicions are further raised as a Facebook post by the Subang Jaya city council Enforcement Department dated 24 June showed officers in a meeting with representatives from Selmax to discuss operations of parking enforcement to be carried out with Selmax, despite the fact that they had not yet been awarded the concession.
With new information regarding the involvement of powerful individuals having a stake in the concessionaire company, the seeming shift in attempting to include a private third party raises serious suspicions which must be clarified immediately.
Lack of transparency and efforts to block information
The lack of transparency surrounding the entire concession process raises major questions regarding its propriety and creates negative perceptions toward all parties involved.
While Datuk Ng Suee Lim – Selangor local government and tourism committee chairman – had previously denied rumours that the appointment of Selmax was done through a direct tender process, there has been little publicly available information regarding the concession.
Worse still, it was reported in late October that the Selangor state government blocked a freedom of information request to obtain more details regarding the SIP initiative, as the information was classified under the OSA 1972.
The opacity surrounding the concession process is deeply troubling. Parking concessions are not matters of national security; they directly affect the daily experience of millions of Selangor residents and involve substantial streams of public revenue. Shielding them behind secrecy laws erodes public trust and runs counter to the principles of open government that the state has long claimed to champion.
Potential conflict of interest and the need to safeguard procurement integrity
The revelation that Raja Muda Tengku Amir Shah holds a 16.5% beneficial stake in Selmax places the SIP concession in ethically sensitive territory and raises fundamental questions about the safeguards protecting Selangor’s procurement system. The concern here is not about the individual, but about the process – public procurement must be structured in a way that prevents even the perception that influence, access, or status could shape commercial outcomes.
In any public infrastructure concession – especially one involving long-term revenue streams, enforcement powers, and widespread public impact – the participation of politically influential or constitutionally recognised figures requires stricter safeguards, not looser ones. Royal households hold symbolic constitutional roles and carry significant moral and institutional influence, and for this reason, international procurement norms treat such individuals as politically exposed persons (PEPs) whose involvement must trigger enhanced due diligence and disclosure mechanisms.
In the case of SIP, these protections appear to have failed on several levels. The stake held by the Raja Muda was not disclosed by the Selangor state government, despite its direct relevance to public trust and the integrity of the tendering process.
Whether the state was aware of this beneficial ownership and chose not to reveal it – or was unaware due to insufficient verification – both scenarios point to serious governance gaps. Moreover, even if the request for proposal (RFP) process was followed, the presence of royalty-linked interests creates an unavoidable perception that the playing field was not level, and that public institutions may have been placed under undue pressure, whether intentionally or otherwise.
What the public now requires is assurance that no preferential treatment influenced the concession award. The Selangor government must explain what conflict-of-interest checks were conducted, whether any declarations were made, and how decision-makers were shielded from potential influence. Without these explanations, the SIP initiative risks eroding confidence not only in this specific concession, but in the broader system of state procurement.
Conclusion
The entire process of concession granting – from the vague processes, unexplained decisions, and attempts to shield information – only emphasises that the methods by which state governments contract private parties remains one that is vulnerable to abuse. This is not the first procurement process under the Selangor government that has raised questions either – just last year, public trust was eroded by similarly opaque and questionable processes in the appointment of Asia Mobility Technologies Sdn Bhd (Asia Mobiliti) as a service provider for Selangor Mobility’s Demand Responsive Transit (DRT).
Sporadic announcements by government representatives are insufficient, while conflicts of interests are only revealed to the public through independent searches – these are abject failures of the state government in upholding good governance principles, especially here where the concession is one that directly affects the public’s use of infrastructure.
Hence, C4 Center strongly urges the Selangor state government to:
- Revert the SIP initiative concession to the contracting stage and issue new requests for proposals, seeing as the process of appointing Selmax has been insufficiently thorough at mitigating corruption risks and adhering to standards of public disclosure;
- Implement contracting processes that prioritise public disclosure regarding concession details and conflicts of interests, and that also prioritise access to information.
Furthermore, we strongly urge the Federal government to amend the Official Secrets Act 1972 to remove broad discretionary and non-reviewable powers, while aligning it with the proposed Freedom of Information Bill.
END OF STATEMENT
Issued by:
Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4 Center)
For further enquiries, please contact:
c4center@gmail.com
019-216 6218
