China companies that supplied ventilators to the Health Ministry during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 had delivered machines that did not meet the specifications ordered.
This is according to a transcript of witnesses' testimonies before the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which investigated the government's procurements related to Covid-19 management.
Health deputy secretary-general (finance) Norazman Ayob said it was a case of the suppliers delivering them products that the ministry did not order.
"It is not so much about the ministry’s standards. In fact, in this procurement, we have provided the technical specifications for the ventilators to PLSB (Pharmaniaga Logistics Sdn Bhd).
"Based on the specifications, which I believe PLSB gave to the suppliers... but when the ventilators arrived, they were not what we ordered.
"This is not an issue of Health Ministry facilities. (Instead), it is an issue of... we placed an order to get an apple, (but) we got something else," Norazman told the committee.
On Feb 16, according to the second series of the Auditor-General's Report 2021, the ministry ordered 136 ventilators for a price tag of RM20.1 million under emergency allocation. However, it was later found that some could not be used.
The machines, ordered from overseas manufacturers, were meant to beef up government hospitals’ medical assets during the pandemic.
The PAC report made public today revealed that the Health Ministry had ordered a total of 136 ventilators through three suppliers, namely Entrol (Hong Kong) Trading Ltd, Hong Kong Smart Int. Investment Ltd, and Allied King Industrial.
According to a PLSB presentation slide attached in the report, they involved seven different ventilator models made by four different manufacturers, all from China.
Of the 136, only 32 of them had passed a test and certification process after they arrived in Malaysia.
Benjamin Low, director of IDS Medical Systems (M) Sdn Bhd - the company that conducted the tests - testified that the rest of the 104 ventilators the Health Ministry received did not even meet specifications advertised by their respective manufacturers.
"When a manufacturer produces a machine, they must have their own range of specifications. So, for the first step, the manufacturer must follow their own specification first.
"However, as we can see here, these machines were (made) not according to the manufacturers' own range of specifications," he testified in a PAC proceeding on Sept 21. - Mkini
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