Khairy denies revealing identities of whistleblowers who reported COVID-19 queue jumpers

Science and Technology Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today that he has not revealed the identity of any of the whistleblowers who shared information about government officials who attempted to jump a priority list for COVID-19 vaccination under the first phase of the national immunisation programme.

He clarified that he has only used some of the information provided by whistleblowers to “correct” the priority list.

“I have not revealed the identities of ANY whistleblower who has emailed me directly. 

“Some of this information has been used to correct the list of appointments made,” he posted on his official Twitter account.

The microblogging site has been lit in the past week with concern for the fate of the whistleblowers with the police initiating an investigation after a Kelantan state government official filed a complaint against them.

Khairy said he had personally asked Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador not to take action against the whistleblowers.

“As far as police reports are concerned, due process follows but I have asked IGP not to punish whistleblowers,” he posted.

On March 3, Mohamad Taufik Ramli, a special officer to the Kelantan state executive councillor for local government, housing and health filed a police report in Kota Baru regarding an allegation that 200 staff in the State Secretary’s Office had jumped the queue to get COVID-19 vaccination.

Khairy, who is in charge of the vaccines access under the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply, said “ vaccine equity is important” and publicly promised on March 1 that he will look into allegations of queue jumpers. 

He urged whistleblowers to email [kj@mosti.gov.my] him information about such power abuses.

A week later, Khairy said he received 200 complaints.

Malaysia kicked off the first of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme’s three phases on February 24, with the first roll-out from February to April this year, involving 500,000 frontliners.

The second phase will be from April to August involving senior citizens aged 65 and above, high-risk groups as well as persons with disabilities, involving some 9.4 million people.

The third phase from May this year to February 2022 will cover both Malaysians and non-citizens aged 18 and above, targeting more than 13.7 million people. — Malay Mail

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