PETALING JAYA, Jan 21 ― PKR today demanded Putrajaya explain why Bestinet Sdn Bhd, which lists former home minister Tan Sri Azmi Khalid as a director, was appointed to run a centralised system on Malaysia’s migrant workers with no prior experience.

At a news conference here, PKR leaders said that checks with the Companies Commission of Malaysia showed that Bestinet had been classified as a dormant RM2 shelf company until 2013.

The private IT firm also did not submit its annual accounts since 2010, they added.

“Now the company is active. This is suspicious, there is no track record as to their expertise,” PKR strategic director Sim Tze Tzin told reporters.

PKR Youth information chief Lee Chean Chung also questioned whether the contract to Bestinet was awarded via open tender or otherwise, as well as Azmi’s role in securing the contract.

“We are shocked with a former Umno home minister’s involvement in this. It gives the impression that there is a conflict of interest and as though the project was awarded based on connections and internal negotiations,” he said.

Azmi was a Cabinet member from 1999 until 2008, and had headed three different ministries at separate times during the period.

Kathmandu-based daily The Himalayan Times had reported in January last year that the Malaysian embassy there had made it mandatory for medical centres conducting health checks for workers to install software developed by Bestinet Sdn Bhd.

Earlier this month, however, Nepal’s Ministry of Labour and Employment said it has not yet agreed to implement Bestinet’s biometric system for its workers heading to Malaysia.

Nepali Labour Secretary Bhola Shiwakoti also told The Himalayan Times that Putrajaya has not provided official information over the matter, even after the Nepali Foreign Ministry lodged an enquiry on Wednesday.

On December 23 last year, 80 representatives under the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (Nafea) reportedly held a two-hour sit-in against what they allege to be a move by Putrajaya to add more financial burden to its workers in Malaysia.