THE cat is finally out of the bag with regard to the issue on MySejahtera vendorship judging from the conclusion reached by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Wong Kah Woh.
It seemed that the Government was confronted by a major confusion as to which body appointed KPISoft Sdn Bhd to develop the MySejahtera app in April 2020.
There was no formal contract inked between the Government and KPISoft Sdn Bhd “since day one” aside from a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) signed between the National Security Council (MKN) and KPISoft on the data collected via the app.
Such was the gist expressed by Wong to the media following a three-hour proceeding on the development and procurement of MySejahtera during which the PAC called in representatives from three agencies under the Prime Minister’s Department, namely the National Security Council (MKN), the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) and the National Cyber Security Agency.
Last week, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz were called in to testify on the same issue.
“From what I can say, the procurement process was not well-handled. Because in normal circumstances, the Government will either have direct negotiations with the vendor or have an open tender or a limited tender,” Wong was cited by theedgemarket.com as saying.
“Here, the big confusion is ‘who made the appointment and what was the justification’. This was (one of) the key questions we asked.”
Wong, who is also Ipoh Timor MP, further expressed concern that the Government is putting itself in a situation whereby they have to pay the developer for MySejahtera when in fact, the initiative started as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) exercise.
“We want to know whether at the start of the proposal, the CSR idea was already there or not,” he explained.
“We raise again the issue of intellectual property rights owner of MySejahtera app in view of a legal suit where the parties claim that the rights are owned by MySJ Sdn Bhd. This claim is supported by the fact that there were sales of shares and licensing agreement which involved a sum of over RM300 mil.”
The PAC investigation was sparked by revelation that MySejahtera’s developer Entomo Malaysia was in a five-year licence agreement with its nominee’s subsidiary MySJ for the transfer of the MySejahtera app to the latter for a RM338.6 mil price tag.
The ownership of the COVID-19 tracing app also caught public attention following a shareholder dispute initiated by MySJ’s 7.03% shareholder P2 Asset Management Sdn Bhd against Revolusi Asia Sdn Bhd, Entomo Malaysia and MySJ.
Revolusi is a nominee for Entomo in holding the majority stake of 81.43% in MySJ. The app was originally a CSR initiative by Entomo Malaysia, then known as KPISoft.
Moving forward, Wong said PAC may call anyone after they have dispensed with the agencies from the Prime Minister’s Department.
There is still some way to go before PAC is able to furnish its final report on the MySejahtera procurement given it still needs to vet through documents and evidence which have been shared to ascertain if it needs to call for more witnesses to testify. – April 22, 2022
