KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Whistleblowers have helped the government detect and act quickly against cases of power abuse in the first phase of the Covid-19 vaccine roll out, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
Putrajaya has tried to encourage complainants to report misconducts directly to the authorities after allegations of “queue jumping” by politically-linked people began emerging last week.
Today, the minister hailed the government’s effort as a success.
“I have received over 200 complaints from those whose identity we protect and we have studied each of them,” he said at the weekly National Immunisation Programme media briefing in Putrajaya.
“Some had no evidence but those involving the list in the first phase were already settled. There were also complaints that prompted us to reset our priorities,” he added.
One such complaint came from a hospital where workers from its emergency ward were excluded from the first phase priority list. Another involved a vaccination centre that tried to use access serum to vaccinate non-priority recipients.
The government has since made the correction, Khairy said.
“Based on the (second) complaint I have ordered the cancellation of all appointments made for those not in the first phase priority list,” the minister explained.
“This is an example of how we’ve acted on whistleblower complaints. So I ordered those excess vaccines… to be redistributed to locations where those on the priority list have yet to be vaccinated,” he added.
“In essence the whistleblower system has been effective and is allowing us to make the necessary corrections.”
Putrajaya has vowed to punish individuals who cut the line for vaccination after allegations about such an incident appeared on social media last week and sparked public uproar.
Those attempting to sneak into the list can be fined not more than RM50,000 or jailed not more than six months under a new provision of the Emergency (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 to take effect on March 11.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, however, insisted that investigations on alleged queue-cutting for Covid-19 vaccines have yielded no evidence that any such incident occurred in the country, and that the allegation may have been a result of confusion.
