THE Public Accounts Committee will be calling Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul and Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to answer questions regarding the procurement of the MySejahtera app, its chairman Wong Kah Woh said today.

Wong said proceedings are expected to start in mid-April and that a date will be announced soon.

“The PAC will call the finance minister, health minister and minister in the prime minister’s office for this proceeding.

“As a start, two main witnesses, Tengku Zafrul and Khairy Jamaluddin will appear before the PAC,” Wong said in a statement.

Last Thursday, at a PAC hearing, questions were raised over the sale of the MySejahtera Covid-19 tracking app to a company in the private sector. 

It was recently revealed that the app was developed without a proper contract between the Health Ministry and developer Entomo (M) Sdn Bhd, previously known as KPISoft (M) Sdn Bhd.

Entomo recently sold the app’s intellectual property and software licence to MySJ Sdn Bhd for RM338.6 million.

The sale has forced the Health Ministry to conduct direct negotiations with MySJ instead of going through an open tender.

“The PAC is of the view that the procurement of MySejahtera has to be explained before this nonpartisan committee for the benefit of the public and the country as the appointment of a private company to manage the app will incur additional costs.

“This also involves the issue of the public’s personal data, and to prevent unscrupulous parties from taking advantage of that.”

On September 21, the Dewan Rakyat was told that the app started out as a corporate social responsibility programme in which the government will be allowed to use it for free for a period of one year.

Subsequently, the government decided that it will start paying for it beginning April 1 last year.

In a PAC report on December 1, the committee recommended against paying for the use of the app, instead it should take over its management without incurring additional cost.

In a letter dated February 28, 2022, the Finance Ministry approved and finalised MOH’s application to implement procurement for the management of the app.

MySejahtera has more than 10 modules and 38 million users comprising locals, foreigners and travellers. Its data has been under ministry supervision since it was first used.

Khairy said MySejahtera data transactions are uploaded to a cloud server network daily and can be accessed only for the use of the app. – March 30, 2022.