KUALA LUMPUR: The government must be more transparent about its spending and stop the “illegal practice” of camouflaging operational expenditure in its finances, Titiwangsa MP Johari Ghani said today.

He said the Financial Procedure Act provided that operational expenditure be paid only from government revenue, while development expenditure is paid for using borrowings.

However, the government had borrowed up to RM300 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic, in part to procure vaccines, which ought to be treated as an operational expenditure.

However, this amount had been hidden as development expenditure, he said.

“Let’s deal with our deficit without hiding our operational expenditure using the ‘off-balance sheet’ system,” he said.

Need to reform subsidy system

Separately, Johari called for more targeted subsidies, citing the example of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which reformed its subsidy system in 2016 by slashing blanket subsidies that only benefited the rich.

The reform helped save money for the Saudi government, and allowed it to give cash aid directly to the poor.

Petronas earns billions annually, but a lot of this money ends up being used on blanket subsidies, said Johari.

“Petronas paid the government RM50 billion in dividends in 2022, but we have used all of it up to pay for subsidies,” he said, adding that the money could have been used to build up the country’s reserves instead.

Last year, the government spent RM77.7 billion on subsidies.

Johari said that between 1974 and 2022, Petronas contributed some RM1.3 trillion to the government’s coffers, yet the National Trust Fund (KWAN) currently only boasts RM16 billion.  FMT

Expose MySejahtera deal in Parliament, says Bar chief

Bar Council president Karen Cheah says the government ‘has no apparent control’ over a licensing deal with a private company until 2025.

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Bar has called on the government to release the details of its non-disclosure agreement with Entomo Malaysia, the company that developed the MySejahtera application.

The government was urged to reveal the details of the agreement with Entomo Malaysia during the current Parliament session so that “all related issues can be debated”.

Bar president Karen Cheah said a Singaporean company, Entomo Pte Ltd, is the sole shareholder of Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd. “The fact that a foreign company is the sole shareholder of Entomo Malaysia, and owns the software for the application, is deeply perturbing,” she said.

She said the appointment of Entomo was not conducted through an open tender, and there was no agreement between the Malaysian government and the company, aside from the non-disclosure agreement.

The government also had “no apparent control” over a licensing deal between Entomo Malaysia and MySejahtera Sdn Bhd, giving the latter a perpetual licence to develop and support the application until 2025.

MySejahtera was the health ministry’s main tool for managing the Covid-19 pandemic and was required for check-ins at public places when lockdown restrictions were eased. The app was mainly used for contact tracing, self-quarantine, and booking vaccination appointments.

Cheah said the ownership of the MySejahtera app, its source codes, user interfaces, and all personal data collected through it should be fully owned by the government – and that this should have been established from the outset.

Bar calls for Privacy Act

The Bar also called for the government to establish a Privacy Act to protect the data of Malaysians collected by companies or government authorities.

She said the liabilities and responsibilities of corporate bodies linked with MySejahtera should not just be governed by a contract between a corporate body and the government, but also by a privacy regime in Malaysia.

“This (privacy regime) is to protect all personal data collected by the Malaysian government or any entity collecting personal data on its behalf.

“Currently, Malaysia does not have such a privacy regime,” Cheah said.

She said personal data in Malaysia is governed by the Personal Data Protection Act which excludes the federal government and state governments. FMT

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