Khairy Jamaluddin – Bernama file photo
PUTRAJAYA (May 27): The RM70 million allocation was not solely for the development of the COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) website, but also for the management of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, said minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
Khairy, who is the coordinating minister for the immunisation programme, explained that the RM70 million was the maximum amount agreed by the government to carry out the large scale vaccination exercise.
“That is the ceiling limit and not necessarily the actual amount that will be spent,” he said in a virtual news conference today.
People have been questioning the RM70 million allocation supposedly used to develop the JKJAV official website after encountering technical problems during the second round of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine registration yesterday.
Elaborating, Khairy said the allocation was also used for the integration of the MySejahtera application’s database with the Health Ministry’s existing system, as well as developing the registration and vaccination tracking system, and the Google map services in the application.
Khairy also apologised and acknowledged the system’s inability to process yesterday’s high demand efficiently.
“The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) takes this matter seriously and has launched an investigation to identify the main cause of the problem and to look at the system’s vulnerability,” he said, adding that the probe would be carried out by the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu).
Meanwhile, Khairy said 5,867 media personnel from 114 registered media agencies would begin to receive their appointment dates for Covid-19 vaccination early next month. – Bernama