The developer of the MySejahtera contract-tracing app is Malaysian owned although the company was set up overseas, Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof said today.
We are using local expertise. KPI Soft is a company owned by Malaysians and is working together with Nacsa (National Cyber Security Agency) and Mampu (Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit),” he said during the ministers’ question-and-answer time in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was responding to a supplementary question by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (Pandan-PH) on why the job was given to a foreign company instead of local companies.
Wan Azizah said this could have increased the risk of cyberattacks.
The company was set up in the United States and had a presence in Singapore, she said.
Maszlee Malik (Simpang Renggam-independent) in another supplementary question also asked Redzuan why development of the MySejahtera app was given to a foreign company instead of Malay-Muslim entrepreneurs, whose cause is often championed by the Perikatan Nasional government.
“YB Simpang Renggam we have to be open-minded. Just because the company was set up in the United States it doesn’t mean it belongs to the United States,” Redzuan replied.
However, Maszlee interjected and spoke over Redzuan, questioning why the government was channelling tax money to a company based overseas.
This started a commotion as Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (PN-Baling) also began speaking over Maszlee as Redzuan continued to attempt to answer the question.
“When you’re the opposition, you want to be smart, but when you were the minister, you weren’t smart,” Redzuan slammed Maszlee.
Several other MPs joined in the chaos as they all continued to talk over each other.
MySejahtera is an application developed by the government to assist monitoring of the Covid-19 outbreak by allowing users to assess their health risk.