KUALA LUMPUR – The one making the most noise about the Central Database Hub (Padu) is Umno Supreme Council member Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi. However, this has not affected the registration rate, said Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.
Rafizi added that Padu registration is consistently between 300,000 and 400,000 over the last week.
“The one who is making a lot of noise is only Puad Zarkashi. Even if Malaysia becomes wealthy, he still won’t agree with me.
“When I was talking about the 1MDB financial scandal, Puad was Jasa (Special Affairs Department) director and he lost in an election and got kicked out of the government.
“So, if you look at four or five people who have been vocal, they are political figures who made it into their personal issues.
“But that doesn’t stop 300,000 to 400,000 people registering for Padu weekly.
“It is their right to voice their cybersecurity concerns, but we have been saying that the system has been attacked two million times a week. The Padu system has not been compromised.”
He said this after a pre-launch ceremony of the Kuala Lumpur 20 blueprint in Parliament today.
“All Padu data is encrypted. Even if it is leaked, the data has to be decrypted.
“While we can continue to explain, we should not lose focus that Padu is an important component to the government’s reforms.
Yesterday, Puad claimed the Padu system was considered a failure because of Rafizi’s image and communication mode, which did not get the trust of the people.
Meanwhile, Rafizi said concerns raised by the Sarawak government have been exaggerated.
“The development of Padu went through a process at the federal and state government levels.
“Since Padu was launched on January 2, Sarawak is one of the states with the highest registration.”
So far, 8.5 million Malaysians have registered for Padu and the minister is confident of achieving 10 million by the March 31 deadline. – March 27, 2024