Govt has not approved payment of MySejahtera operator - Khairy

He said the government and the Health Ministry (MOH) would ensure any decision on the payment of cost would take into consideration the interests of the nation and people.

"Therefore, negotiation is still going on at the moment to achieve a win-win situation and resolve the issue.

"I heard the market price is more than RM300 million, I can say here that the price we are negotiating is far less than RM300 million. We will get an actual cost which protects the interests of the public," he said when winding up the debate on a motion on MySejahtera application at Dewan Negara today.

The government is now at the final stage on the matter, and it is almost at the contract signing level, he said when replying to an intervening question by Senator Fadhlina Sidek who wanted to know the status of negotiation on payment to MySejahtera operator.

Therefore, he said there was no issue in the sale of MySejahtera application to a private party as it was a decision of the Cabinet in November last year which agreed that the ownership of MySejahtera is transferred from the National Security Council (MKN) to MOH.

He said it was aimed at facilitating the system operation, monitoring and tracking contacts and empowering announcements on public health.

"The transfer is not from a company to MOH but from one government agency to MOH," he said while adding that it was appropriate for MOH to completely take over the operation of MySejahtera as the main function as well as data acquired via the application is related to health.

Khairy said in line with the decision of the Cabinet, a Steering Committee chaired by himself was set up comprising members from relevant agencies such as the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA), Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation to negotiate with MySejahtera operator.

"The steering committee will also discuss the future direction of MySejahtera application, more so after we have moved to the pandemic transition phase and later to the endemic phase," he said.

Khairy also gave his assurance that he and MOH would give their full cooperation to any proceeding conducted by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

He said there was nothing to hide and the decision to hold negotiation was an effort to correct the problems which arose earlier.

In this regard, Khairy clarified the shareholders of Entomo Pte Ltd (earlier known as KPISoft Malaysia Sdn Bhd) based in Singapore are Malaysians.

"They made the decision to be based in Singapore as other technology companies from Malaysia as it is easier to obtain investors in Singapore," he said.

On an earlier allegation that NASCA paid KPISoft Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Khairy said the payment is not for MySejahtera application but to Google for their API services for example Google Maps.