KUALA LUMPUR: Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has refuted claims that the government has sold the MySejahtera application to a private entity.
Earlier today, Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim questioned the Cabinet's decision to appoint MySJ Sdn. Bhd. by direct negotiation to take over MySejahtera after the government agreed to relinquish control over the app on Nov 26, 2021.
However, Khairy, in a statement today, said the government had, on Nov 26 last year, decided that the MySejahtera will be the government's property and appointed the Health Ministry as the main owner of the application for the country's public health management.
"The government also did not make any payments to KPISOFT (M) Sdn Bhd, which developed the MySejahtera application throughout the usage period, between March 27, 2020, and March 31, 2021.
"This was based on the company's decision to offer the application to the government for one year, without any charge, based on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) principle.
"Since its launch, the MySejahtera application has been utilised through the "software as a service" approach, which has helped the government reduce the turnaround time needed to develop new software to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Besides that, the MySejahtera app is also a stable and dynamic platform as it could allow for its features to be enhanced, in tandem with the current developments of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"After the CSR period ended, the government on March 2021, agreed for MySejahtera's usage to continue. The application currently has over 10 modules, and 38 million registered users, comprising citizens, non-citizens and travellers.
"The government, on Nov 26, 2021, also decided for the Health Ministry to establish a Price Negotiation Committee, comprising members from all stakeholder agencies, to negotiate procurement and management of the application with the company for two years, in line with the government's procurement procedures.
"The Finance Ministry, subsequently, through a letter on Feb 28, 2022, approved the Health Ministry's application to procure the MySejahtera application.
"The negotiation process has begun and the Health Ministry will ensure due diligence is conducted to preserve the government's interest," he said.
Khairy said the scope of MySejahtera procurement and management involves operations of the platform, system development (which includes additional module development, maintenance and data centre management) and third-party services that covers Google Map and Places Application Programming Interface (API) and Short Messaging Services (SMS) subscriptions.
Khairy also stressed that the MySejahtera data has always been under the Health Ministry's purview ever since the app was rolled out.
The MySejahtera data management, he said, is subject to procedures set by the Health Ministry, under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988, Medical Act 1971 and international guidelines.
"The MySejahtera data cannot be shared by the Health Ministry with any government or private agencies.
"Besides that, the data transaction from the MySejahtera application is uploaded to a cloud server network every day, that can solely be accessed for MySejahtera's use only.
The confidentiality of public data is guaranteed and the ministry will always ensure that this aspect is never compromised," he added.