By Emmanuel Samarathisa
THE Social Security Organisation (Socso) has denied the contents of a tweet claiming that its procurement exercise to select service providers for the Prihatin Screening Programme (PSP) had been rigged.
“We strongly deny the insinuation by the tweet that this is just a formal exercise,” Socso’s Prevention, Medical and Rehabilitation division head Dr Azlan Darus told FocusM.
The PSP, which is in its second phase, provides free Covid-19 tests to workers with Socso bearing the cost of funding the programme.
Former Wangsa Maju MP Wee Choo Keong tweeted today questioning Socso’s “speedy” approval of PSP service providers, claiming that the entire exercise was “to just get through the motions.”
@PERKESOofficial has RM200 mil combat Covid19. Speedy Gonzales dateline of less than 24 hr for quotation suggest that a supplier had been identified & just get thru motion of quotation. @myksm @muhyiddin_my @SPRMMalaysia @NST_Online @SinChewPress @msianinsight @FocusMalaysiaMY pic.twitter.com/2qwsRfjSKm
— Wee Choo Keong (@weechookeong) May 6, 2020
The letter dated May 4 required vendors to submit their requests for quotations (RFQ) to provide RT-PCR test kits, but participants had to submit the RFQ the next day (May 5), 2pm.
The RFQs in Wee’s tweet were “legitimate”, Azlan said, but “these letters were sent to all vendors who had approached Sosco to supply their services for the Covid-19 screening, who had indicated their intention over the last two weeks.”
Azlan said that in order to “be fair and in accordance with our procurement process,” Socso had invited everyone who had approached the organisation earlier to submit an official quotation at “one go” as “all quotations will be deliberated equally.”
He added that the organisation expected genuine parties who claimed to be able “to supply us the service to be able to provide us a quotation after days of approaching us.”
At the time of writing, BP Healthcare Group is the only authorised testing provider. In an earlier request for comment, Socso chief executive officer Datuk Seri Dr Mohammed Azman Aziz Mohammed told FocusM that BP Healthcare was chosen for the first phase of the programme after it satisfied the requirements laid out by the fund.
“BP Healthcare has dedicated seven PCR machines for the programme, and will complement this further with new machines in the next few days,” he said.
Azman added that Socso was in the process of appointing more providers to fulfil the requirements for the second phase. – May 6, 2020
