KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 4): The Government has been urged to review the propriety of awarding the MySejahtera application contract via direct negotiations made through a Cabinet decision dated Nov 27, 2021, while the Government should take over the entire application through the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU).
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) opined that the Government also needs to take a more prudent approach in all procurement processes, said PAC chairman Wong Kah Woh in a statement on Tuesday (Oct 4).
“All offers through corporate social responsibility (CSR) are welcome. However, the terms related to the CSR offer should be clearly stated, and should not be used as an alternative way for direct negotiations. Guidelines should be established for the governance of CSR offerings,” he said.
These are among the four recommendations made by the PAC to the Government to implement as improvement measures, as a result of two sets of proceedings by the parliamentary committee.
Earlier in the same day, the PAC released a report on MySejahtera application development and procurement under the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the Prime Minister's Department.
According to the report, the appointment of KPISoft (Entomo) as the MySejahtera application developer in March 2020 was found to be irregular and not based on government procurement procedures.
It said there are no minutes or supporting documents that exist regarding the appointment, with the only document being the non-disclosure agreement signed between the National Security Council (NSC) on behalf of the Government and KPISoft.
The parliamentary committee also noted that the MOF had set a ceiling price of RM196 million for the acquisition of MySejahtera for a period of two years (RM98 million per year), whereby this amount was deemed high and contradicted the concept of CSR.
As of April this year, the committee had divulged that the Government had yet to register the intellectual property for the MySejahtera application on MyIPO, which may cause the application to be claimed for ownership by the developer.
Meanwhile, other recommendations noted further by the parliamentary committee include that the Government should ensure full ownership of the MySejahtera application, besides the needs to guarantee the security of users' personal data in the application and ensure that the data is not misused by any party.
“The Government needs to continue efforts to make the MySejahtera application a national public health management tool in line with the digitalisation plan for health services,” added Wong.
Eight witnesses had been summoned by the PAC, whereby the commitee held two proceedings on April 14 and 21 regarding the issue of MySejahtera, including the application’s developer.
The witnesses included Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, Treasury secretary general Datuk Asri Hamidon, as well as MOH secretary general Datuk Harjeet Singh Hardev Singh.
Also called to testify were deputy secretary-general (finance and development) of the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Sollehuddin Alyubi Zakaria, MAMPU director general Datuk Seri Dr Yusof Ismail, NSC director general Datuk Rodzi Md Saad, and National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) chief executive Rahamzan Hashim.