KUALA LUMPUR – The Universiti Malaya Students’ Union (UMSU) has taken the university’s administration to task over claims of high prices and contaminated food served at the cafeterias of its residential colleges.
Labelling Universiti Malaya (UM) as the “largest nest of cronyism in Malaysia”, the union said that it is providing a 24-hour deadline beginning today for the management of the nation’s highest-ranking tertiary education institute to respond to its demands.
“If our demands are not addressed, UMSU will not hesitate to report the matter to authorities such as the Kuala Lumpur City Council, the Immigration Department and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission,” the union said in a statement today.
Among its demands are for the university to revoke decisions regarding cafeteria vendor selections which did not consider the union’s input, and to involve union representatives in every selection meeting in the future.
Alleging that the university had backed out of its “promise” and “conveniently forgotten” to invite UMSU to a vendors selection meeting last week, the union said it is “illogical” to hold such a meeting without UMSU representatives, as students are the biggest stakeholders who patronise the cafeterias daily.
The union also “strongly condemned” the university’s administration’s blatant ignorance of students’ complaints, despite many students supposedly having been affected by the administration’s “negligence”.
“Lately, UMSU has received numerous complaints from students regarding unsatisfactory services provided by residential college cafeterias. Among these complaints are cases of food poisoning, unsanitary premises, stale and unsatisfactory food quality, expensive food prices, inconsistent charges and so forth,” it said.
“The issue is so severe that several cafeteria vendors even confided with UMSU’s president along with its cabinet members regarding the regrettable instances where many applications from other vendors to open businesses at UM were unreasonably rejected.
“On the other hand, UM’s administration chooses to extend the contracts of other vendors for decades, despite the vendors having repeatedly caused food poisoning cases,” it added.
Besides that, the union claimed that operation and service personnel in the cafeterias are “monopolised by foreigners only” as a result of the university “disregarding” laws and compromising on the quality of service delivered to students.
“Leasing licences to foreigners in the business field, otherwise known as the ‘Ali Baba Scheme’, violates the law – namely the Small Traders Licencing Ordinance (Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) 2016, where Section 5 clearly states that no licence can be issued to any person who is not a Malaysian citizen.”
Noting that “many” students had to visit the hospital due to food poisoning, the union added, however, that the Third Residential College Cafe (Sepakat Barakh) is considered “well-maintained,” with 461 students having petitioned that the cafe operator be retained. – January 7, 2024