The International Trade and Industry Ministry’s (Miti) website was inaccessible since it opened for business operation applications this morning.
The website apparently received more than 100,000 applications since 9am for certain businesses to operate during the third phase of the movement control order (MCO).
Miti in a Twitter message wrote: “Hi, due to heavy traffic, the Miti portal shows temporarily inaccessible. More than 100k companies have applied so far in the system. Please keep trying and the server will direct when a slot is available. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. Thank you.”
Meanwhile, some business operators took to social media to vent their frustration after repeatedly failing to gain access to the online application site.
Last Friday, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the government agreed to allow selected businesses in a few sectors to resume operations in stages during the MCO period.
He had specifically mentioned only certain sectors and businesses would have the privilege to reopen, but they had to follow the restrictions under the movement control and observe all healthcare guidelines.
In the afternoon, Miti suspended its business operation application system to deal with the online traffic.
In a statement, it said the Miti portal’s online traffic surged to 176,000 users within the first two hours.
“Miti found that the majority of these visitors were not companies, but individuals accessing the portal, and the number of visitors is more than the number of companies in the sectors which have been approved to operate during the MCO.
“As such, Miti will reconfigure the online application system to ensure that only companies in the sectors which have been allowed to operate will be able to access the system,” it said.
This is not the first time the Miti website has crashed.
On March 19, the website crashed after a flood of applications by essential service providers.
Business guilds were later roped in to help clear the backlog manually.
Companies are required to prepare the following detailed information for their applications to be processed:
- Company registration details, including Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM); priorities licence number and local authorities licence number;
- The correspondence and operations address of the company. A company can list up to 10 operational addresses;
- The company’s estimated revenue for 2017,2018 and 2019 and;
- The company’s total number of permanent employees, including the name, identification card number and contact number of each employee and any other identification details and nature or scope of work in the company.