KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 — Online news portal The Malaysian Insight (TMI) has halted its operations today, reportedly due to its struggle to pay employees’ wages.

Malaysiakini reported that its website has not published any news stories today — with the English version’s last article at midnight, and its Malay version stopped publishing at 7am.

Quoting anonymous sources within the company, the report said that staff members were told to take "an indefinite leave” until the matter was resolved.

It also reported that salaries at the company were in arrears for several months with the last full salary paid for services rendered in October and November last year.

This has then reportedly led to some employees leaving the company.

Last year, it was reported that the site was bought over by Datuk Vinod Sekhar of the Petra Group, which also owns TMI’s competitor The Vibes. The two companies, however, remained in operation as usual separately.

Malay Mail has reached out to TMI’s founder Jahabar Sadiq for comments.

TMI is the continuation of The Malaysian Insider, which was acquired by The Edge Media Group in 2014. It was shut down in 2016 due to losses after it was blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).