KOTA KINABALU, May 21 — Sabah Covid-19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun is not aware of the offer by a Hong Kong-based company to donate two million doses of Sinovac vaccine to Sabah. 

Masidi was asked to comment on the allegation that the state government did not respond to the donation offer.

"I have no comment as I am not aware of such purported donation,” he said in a WhatsApp message to The Borneo Post this morning.

A representative of the company, Yong Chee Kong, said the two million Sinovac vaccine doses were offered to Penang when there was no response from the Sabah government.

Yong claimed that he reached out to the Sabah government via the chief minister. When there was no reply, his investment company, Xintai Enterprise Development Limited, offered it to Penang since they approached him.

National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin has described the donation as bogus.

 "We have been applying to the Ministry of Health (MoH) to donate the vaccine since January but it was rejected, because we can only buy vaccine from Malaysia government.

"When the ministry (Khairy) requested for proof of purchase, obviously I can’t give because we can only arrange the purchasing after receiving approval from the federal government,” said Yong when contacted by Utusan Borneo on Thursday night.

"All related documents including WeChat messages and emails between my company and the vaccine’s manufacturer China’s Sinovac Biotech have been given to Khairy’s PA (personal assistant) since February but they never reply.

"If the government is not agreeing with the donation, just say it. No need to tarnish my name.

"I am just a representative. The donation is from my company. I am arranging for the company to get approval,” added Yong.

"If the government is not giving approval for the vaccine, I am not interested to handle this donation anymore.

 "At the moment, I am still waiting responses. If my name is not cleared (from being called bogus), I might be taking legal action,” he said.

Yong, who is a Sabahan, also said that Khairy’s PA messaged him before asking why is he not donating to the government.

He said: "My company wished to donate vaccine, not cash”.

Yong further explained that purchasing vaccine from the manufacturer and channeling it directly to the government is easier.

"However, without approval letter from MoH, the purchasing cannot proceed.”

Yong’s name has become very popular name in Malaysia for the past two days.

According to a news portal, a search of his name on Google Trends, a website by the tech giant that analyses the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages, searches for his name by Malaysians over the last week went up from zero to 100 points over four hours from noon to 4pm on Wednesday. — Borneo Post