KUALA LUMPUR — Senior management of the Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA) must be held accountable if inaccurate information was provided about the TuJu navigation application during official discussions, Communications Minister Datuk Seri Fahmi Fadzil said.
He said those responsible for providing advice or information to the government must be prepared to answer for any inaccuracies.
“If inaccurate information was presented, the senior management of the organisation concerned must be held accountable.
“They must be made to account for whatever advice or information that they have given,” Fahmi was reported saying today by New Straits Times.
He was speaking to reporters after officiating the Cardiac Vascular Sentral Kuala Lumpur (CVSKL) Foundation’s Health Screening Programme for Journalists here today.
Fahmi was asked about directional issues when using TuJu, which the government has mandated for civil servants when on official duty to replace the Waze navigation application.
On October 27, MHA chairman Datuk Seri Hasni Mohammad clarified that TuJu was developed primarily to enhance services along tolled highways, rather than to compete directly with Waze.
He explained that it was limited to tolled highways to help users with real-time traffic monitoring, toll charges and locations of rest areas and enforcement camera spots, as well as emergency assistance numbers.
It was not meant to be a standard global position navigational tool, Hasni reportedly said.
The clarification came amid public scrutiny over the government’s promotion of TuJu as an alternative to Waze, following Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s call for Malaysians to switch to the locally developed application over national security concerns.
Fahmi said he did not attend the official meeting in question.
“I did not attend that meeting. I do not have information about what was discussed,” he said.
The government said its ban on on Waze for civil servants is based on concerns that government information and users’ personal data could potentially be misused by the Israeli regime.
However, Waze has rejected allegations that it gathers sensitive government information or allows third parties to exploit users’ personal data.
The company said it adheres to strict privacy policies and complies with international data protection standards.
Meanwhile, Public Service Department (PSD) director-general Tan Sri Dr Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz said he is confident civil servants will fully comply with the ban on using Waze, even though the compliance rate had yet to be determined.
He said the government had only recently announced the directive and believed civil servants would adhere to it to protect national security. — October 31, 2026