MySejahtera probe: PAC hears from Zafrul and KJ, needs to call others

 

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today heard testimonies from Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz and Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin regarding the MySejahtera application.

According to PAC chairperson Wong Kah Woh, the hearing today took three hours. However, more witnesses need to be called.

Wong said the PAC will summon the National Security Agency, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu) and the National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa) to testify on April 21.

The PAC is looking at five areas concerning MySejahtera:

1. The deal with KPISoft Sdn Bhd in April 2020.
2. The deal with MySJ Sdn Bhd in November 2021 that was conducted without an open tender.
3. The ownership of MySejahtera.
4. The government's commitment to protecting personal information.
5. Companies that are involved in the legal dispute with MySJ Sdn Bhd.

Interest in the government's handling of MySejahtera was renewed following PAC's investigation of the government Covid-19 procurement programme.

During that investigation, civil servants who testified revealed that the government plans to start paying MySJ Sdn Bhd to run the MySejahtera application.

Court documents also suggest that MySejahtera will eventually be commercialised.

So far, Putrajaya has not revealed its plans for MySejahtera, even as Malaysia is in the "transition to endemic" phase, which may mean that the application's tracking functions are less relevant.

Khairy told the Parliament on March 31 that the Health Ministry intends to "pivot" to other functions, such as an electronic medical records application.

Critics argue that this should not happen because Malaysians had agreed to compromise their privacy by using MySejahtera to deal specifically with the Covid-19 pandemic and nothing else. - Mkini