Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the concerns Opposition politicians previously raised in Parliament have now been justified, with the PAC chairman highlighting the confusion and uncertainty regarding the health minister’s assurances over the development of the MySejahtera app. – Picture by Hari Anggara
KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today said that the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) findings into the development and procurement of the MySejahtera mobile application showed the government was not transparent in these areas.
He said the concerns Opposition politicians previously raised in Parliament have now been justified, with the PAC chairman highlighting the confusion and uncertainty regarding the health minister’s assurances over the development of the MySejahtera app.
“Particularly in the issue of how secure the data collected from the app has been during the last two years.
“One of the most troubling matters is the high potential for data leakage. This makes our information available to foreign-owned entities.
“It is of the utmost importance that the government proves to the people that our data has, and continues to be, secure on government servers only,” he said in a statement this evening.
Last week, PAC chairman Wong Kah Woh said there was major confusion on which specific official or agency appointed KPISoft Sdn Bhd to develop MySejahtera, the government’s official Covid-19 tracking app, in April 2020.
He said the procurement process was not well handled as in normal circumstances, the government would either negotiate directly with the vendor or call for open or limited tenders.
Anwar urged the PAC to summon the private entities involved in the development of the app and data management, and get relevant technical experts, to help track down the exact servers where MySejahtera data were hosted.
“The collection of data by any government agency or organisation without openly stating its objective leaves the said data highly vulnerable to abuse and represents a clear and dangerous dereliction of duty on the part of the collectors,” he said.
Anwar said the Health Ministry must allow for a full audit with data forensics.
Wong’s comments came after a three-hour session on the development and procurement of MySejahtera, during which the PAC called in representatives from three agencies under the Prime Minister’s Department, namely NSC, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit and the National Cyber Security Agency.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz were also called in to testify on the same issue last week.