It is highly contentious that bargaining over MySejahtera’s follow-up services is only done now after the platform has been offered for use free of charge for over a year.

Controversies over the contract negotiations between the government and MySejahtera’s supplier MySJ Sdn Bhd have now been brought out from under the carpet.

Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin has said if the contract is perceived to be unfair to the government, the government may consider picking another vendor to manage the platform.

Simply put, the MySejahtera application was developed by the system’s original developer Entomo (previously known as KPISoft) to help the government manage the COVID-19 pandemic, in the absence of a contract!

Theoretically, Entomo is the owner of MySejahtera’s intellectual property right and patented software although it has since sold the right of using the software to MySJ for RM338.68 million, and as such the health ministry will have to initiate negotiations with MySJ now.

Khairy said MySejahtera and the data collected in the program belong to the government, which has not sold the data to any private company and therefore does not belong to Entomo.

The minister revealed that the government is in the midst of negotiating with MySJ over the platform’s maintenance, and that if the company does not agree that the government is the owner of the platform, negotiations will be discontinued, adding that the RM338.68 million deal between Entomo and MySJ has nothing to do with the government; neither do the legal disputes between the two companies.

Khairy said during the pandemic, Emtomo’s predecessor KPISoft through the national security council proposed to set up the MySejahtera platform for the government. No contract was signed back then, and the government never paid a cent to the company, either.

In short, it was to be seen as the company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility). But as the government could not have it as CSR forever, this matter was brought to the cabinet meeting, meaning the government wanted to ink a contract with the service provider.

Negotiations with MySJ are still on-going at this moment, but the pricing will be far below RM300 million. If the negotiations fail, the government may have to look for a new service provider.

The ownership of MySejahtera involves three parties: the government, Entomo and MySJ. The disputes between the two companies are to be settled by the court, while MySJ’s service fees through negotiations.

Although the government has so far not paid a cent, meaning it has not lost anything in this whole thing, the incident has nevertheless highlighted a severe lack of transparency and open tendering in government procurement.

As a matter of fact, the construction of the MySejahtera app should have been carried out through open tenders in the very beginning. If any company was willing to provide the service free of charge, at least a contract should have been signed for paid follow-up services. It is highly contentious that bargaining over the follow-up services is only done now after the platform has been offered for use free of charge for over a year.

Luckily the health minister is watching over this seriously now, or it could potentially evolve into another major corruption issue!

Corruption is a very serious question in this country and is taking place from top down, and small to big, some involving billions of ringgits!

To enhance the transparency of government procurement, fully transparent and open procurement information must be enforced among government departments, local agencies as well as elected representatives.

Open government tenders should be conducted online with full transparency, and the government should build a mechanism to vet through each tender in order to plug any loophole of quick money for irresponsible officials.

There are hundreds of thousands of government procurements carried out each year which should be done openly online. We might have started doing so, but it’s simply insufficient.

Where this is concerned, Taiwan has been doing exceptionally well. Every procedure–from the acquisition of electronic bidding forms, tender notices and bid award notifications, to successful/unsuccessful bidders and their bidding prices–is all available for public viewing.