Guan Eng urges Anwar to scrap TuJu, call open tender for new navigation app for civil servants

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 29 — Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng today urged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to abandon the TuJu navigation app, find a reliable temporary replacement for Waze and hold an open tender for young Malaysians to design a new road navigation application.

The DAP lawmaker said he had received complaints from civil servants who were confused over which navigation app to use following the government’s ban on Waze, which was to be replaced by TuJu, developed by the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) and Prosignal Consortium Sdn Bhd.

“TuJu has turned out to be a national embarrassment and failed miserably following the directive to 1.7 million civil servants by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to switch to TuJu over national security concerns,” he said in a statement today. 

Lim said LLM chairman and Simpang Renggam MP Datuk Seri Hasni Mohammad had “further muddied the waters” by admitting that TuJu was developed primarily to improve services along tolled highways rather than to compete directly with Waze.

He noted that Hasni had described TuJu as an additional service for tolled highway users, providing traffic updates, information on rest areas, locations of enforcement cameras and emergency assistance contacts, rather than a navigation app covering all roads.

Lim also highlighted Hasni’s remark that TuJu could perhaps be expanded to federal, municipal and village roads in 10 to 15 years.

“In other words, TuJu is not ready now for 1.7 million civil servants,” Lim said.

“Clearly the Prime Minister has been badly misled that TuJu can rival or be an adequate replacement to Waze, especially when TuJu was not selected by open tender,” he added.

Lim questioned how civil servants were expected to find their way around when they could neither use Waze nor rely on TuJu, which he said had since been disabled.

“Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim should bail out the country’s 1.7 million civil servants by pressing the reset button on seeking an alternative to Waze, by abandoning the failed TuJu and finding a reliable temporary replacement, as well as conducting an open tender for young Malaysians to design a new and effective road navigation application,” he said.