Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow has urged a private company that pledged to contribute two million doses of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine to Penang to come forward and deny it was a 'bogus firm' as claimed by a minister.
This came after Coordinating Minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) Khairy Jamaluddin said that the company did not exist.
Chow (above) said Khairy's accusation was serious and thus the director and the company should come forward to dismiss the allegation.
"The state government urges the company to offer an explanation and show relevant evidence to clear its name and image," he said in a statement today.
Chow stressed that the Penang government had taken prudent action when it accepted the vaccine offer via a letter dated Feb 1 by seeking the views of the Penang Health Department.
"The state Health Department requested us to refer the matter to the Health Ministry for further views and advice.
"On March 12, Health Ministry secretary-general Mohd Shafiq Abdullah replied to us that it was unnecessary to consider contributors of vaccines as the federal government had planned and implemented the National Immunisation Programme.
"Shafiq, however, did not touch on the status of the company when offering his opinion," he said.
Chow pointed out that the state government was unable to follow up on the matter as it could not submit a copy of a verification letter from the Health Ministry to the company in order for the latter to negotiate with the vaccine manufacturer.
"The vaccine offer was again raised on May 18 when I questioned why the Health Ministry could not give a verification letter to the state government based on a response letter from the ministry's secretary-general, while Sarawak and Selangor reportedly bought vaccines for their own use," he added.
He said the state government had fulfilled its responsibility and did what was best in this issue because the vaccine offered by the firm will be given to the people.
Chow and his predecessor Lim Guan Eng slammed Putrajaya after the Health Ministry rejected Penang's application in March for the Sinovac vaccines.
Khairy, however, pointed out that the vaccine offer was a scam as the company, Xintai Development Enterprise Ltd does not exist and nobody knows the director Yong Chee Kong, who is said to hail from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
Khairy added that the federal government rejected Penang's application in March to bring in Sinovac because the vaccine was not yet approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) then.
According to a search with Hong Kong's companies registry, Xintai Development Enterprise Ltd does not exist, but Xintai Enterprise Development Ltd and Xintai Development Ltd are on the registry.
Xintai Enterprise Development is a company based in Bank of America Tower, Central, Hong Kong. It was established in 2013 and has a paid-up capital of HK$300 million. The only listed director is named He Qianying.
Xintai Development Limited is a company located at One Capital Place, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. It was established in November 2017 and has a paid-up capital of HK$1.
Its sole listed director is Ng Wai Hong, a Hong Kong resident who holds a Hong Kong identity card. - Mkini
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