‘Malaysia 1’ fetches highest bid of RM1,111,111
PUTRAJAYA: The special number ‘MALAYSIA 1’ fetched RM1,111,111, the highest bid ever for a vehicle registration plate, Transport Minister Anthony Loke revealed yesterday.
He said the successful bid was made by Aldi International Sdn Bhd, an investment company in Johor Bahru.
The company was also successful in its bids for ‘MALAYSIA 2’ for RM422,000 and ‘MALAYSIA 4’ for RM162,000, he said at a press conference here when announcing the successful bids for the special ‘MALAYSIA’ number plates in conjunction with National Day 2018.
Loke said all the 10 special numbers in the series ‘MALAYSIA 1’ to ‘MALAYSIA 999’ fetched RM3.62 million.
“The government collected in all RM13.6 million from the ‘MALAYSIA’ special registration numbers,” he said.
Loke said the ‘MALAYSIA 2020’ registration number was not opened for bidding because it had been reserved for the official car of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“The PM will bring the car bearing the ‘MALAYSIA 2020’ plate during the National Day celebrations,” he said.
Loke also revealed that the government had lost about RM100 million in revenue from the bidding for special vehicle registration numbers under the previous administration.
He claimed that leakages occurred when the previous government issued the special plate numbers to NGOs and companies for sale at a tender price of RM1 million for each series.
“Let’s say RM5 million was collected for each series. There have been more than 30 series. So, there have been leakages of more than RM100 million which the government should have collected,” he said.
Loke said the ministry would open bidding for special registration numbers every two months to increase the government revenue.