PETALING JAYA, Sept 25 — The new chief executive officer (CEO) of Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) is expected to be announced after the share subscription agreement signing is finalised.

Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil said Treasury secretary-general Datuk Johan Mahmood Merican and Communication and Digital secretary-general Datuk Mohamad Fauzi Md Isa who co-chaired the 5G task force meeting will oversee the final aspects before the signing is carried out.

"I have notified all the CEOs of mobile network operators (MNOs) about finalising the share subscription agreement signing, hopefully within next week if everything goes well.

"We will also inform the media when the signing will take place after all MNOs that participated in the meeting have taken up their equity...I think perhaps either during or just after the signing (we will announce the CEO), hopefully,” he said during a press conference after the launching of Malaysia Digital Expo (MDX 2023), here today.

Fahmi had earlier been reported as saying that all telecommunication companies had agreed to sign the access agreement to provide 5G service but the matter of share ownership in DNB had yet to be announced.

On July 21, Fahmi said CelcomDigi, Maxis, Telekom Malaysia ™, U Mobile and YTL Communications would finalise talks on equity holdings in DNB soon.

This would further support the development of the 5G network until coverage reached 80 per cent of populated areas by the end of this year.

When asked on criticisms by a group of veteran journalists on the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Fahmi said he will have a briefing with MCMC soon to understand what transpired between them and how to improve things.

"I will have to get some briefing from them first, before I can comment but I respect the views of the journalists, whether they are veteran or junior journalists and to me all journalists are important and freedom of the press is something very important to the government.

"At the same time being factually correct is also very important and that is why we believe that perhaps the Malaysia Media Council would be a very good avenue to mitigate, to discuss and to resolve a numbers of issues... we hope that by next year we can bring the bill to Parliament and pass the law for journalists to better regulate themselves, he said.

On August 29, MCMC in a statement reiterated that the commission plays a crucial role in regulating the communications and multimedia industry in Malaysia, guided by the provisions of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA 1998), which entrusts the commission to carry out its functions.

The statement was issued in response to an article by senior journalists, as reported by several media outlets, titled ‘MCMC Must Stop Playing Big Brother’. — Bernama