Muda: Vaccination website a failure! We paid RM70m for this?

Malaysian United Democratic Party (Muda) today has demanded an answer from National Covid-19 Immunisation Program Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

In a statement, Muda’s secretary-general Amir Abd Hadi said many were unable to use the website to register themselves for the AstraZeneca vaccine at the allotted time.

"The rakyat has many questions, including the use of the free version of cloudflare.

"This raises so many questions because the cost to develop the system was RM70 million," he said.

Amir said Khairy must now reveal who received the RM70 million contract.

Registration for the AstraZeneca vaccine was open to the public for a second time today and 300,000 appointments were snapped up in around 65 minutes.

However, Malaysiakini has been inundated with complaints by people who could not complete the registration process, despite trying to do so across multiple devices.

A frequent complaint was that the user was unable to click on the vaccination centre of their choice.

Another frequent complaint was that the user will come across an error screen by cloudflare - a web security service.

Others joked that having to go through the captcha test numerous times to prove that the they were not a robot had made them question their humanity.

Veteran comedian Harith Iskandar also used the opportunity to make fun of Prasarana chairperson and Pasir Salak MP Tajuddin Abdul Rahman's performance at a press conference yesterday.

Putrajaya's budget for the vaccination programme has ballooned from RM3 billion in November last year to RM5 billion.

It is partly funded by dipping into the National Trust Fund (Kwan), a move that was done without parliamentary oversight.

Khairy had previously described the RM70 million budget for the "data integration and appointment system" as "not excessive".

He did not reveal who received the contracts.