KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4 —The Ministry of Finance (MoF) set a ceiling price of RM196 million for the procurement of the MySejahtera health application over a period of two years, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) revealed in a report today.

The report labelled the amount spent as exorbitant and contradicts the concept of corporate social responsibility.

The CSR concept suggested by KPISoft, the developer of MySejahtera, has caused the government to be unclear over the true direction of the acquisition of the application, the report added, saying that the government was confused about KPISoft’s appointment, the CSR concept and its duration, as well as ownership of the application.

"The CSR concept seems to have been used as a mechanism to receive a government project without following proper procedures,” the report noted.

It revealed that the appointment of KPISoft not only did not follow government procedure but that there were also no supporting documents or minutes aside from a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) signed between KPISoft and the National Security Council (MKN).

There were also no documents stating that the CSR project was for one year, causing the government to be stuck, forcing it to appoint MySJ Sdn Bhd through direct negotiations, the report further said.

Besides that, the government had not registered the intellectual property for MySejahtera at MyIPO as of April 2022, which the report noted could cause KPISoft to claim ownership of the application.

Furthermore, despite the government’s guarantee that the data collected by the application belonged to it, KPISoft admitted that the company is the owner of the application’s intellectual property, it added.

PAC recommended that the government review the propriety of awarding the MySejahtera application contract through direct negotiations, adding that the latter needs to take over the app through the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu).

"The government must ensure full ownership of the MySejahtera application. It must guarantee the security of the personal data within the MySejahtera application and ensure the data is not misused by any party,” it said.

It also recommended that the government continue efforts to turn the app into a national public health management tool in line with the plan to digitise health services.

The full report can be read at here.