‘We (in Malaysia and in the world) are now facing the biggest crisis faced by humankind since the Second World War. We need our government to do the right thing to steer us out of this combined health and economic crisis. The government has to:
- Implement movement restrictions as and when required to keep the incidence of new cases from overwhelming the capacity of our hospitals;
- Ensure that the vaccination programme reaches 80 percent of our population (26 million) as soon as possible. As of date, only 11 million Malaysians have signed up. The rest remain unconvinced, and the anti-vaxxers are not helping the situation;
- Ensure that those whose incomes have collapsed because of the MCOs are identified and supported; and
- Raise the funds necessary to do all of the above without compromising Malaysia’s credit ratings in the financial markets.
‘The government needs the support and trust of the people in order to carry out the above measures. I would submit that unfairly running the government down and undermining its credibility does not help in handling the Covid-19 nightmare.
‘Do criticise if there are shortcomings and if possible, suggest pragmatic steps that can be taken to overcome these. But disparaging everything the government is doing on the basis they are an “illegitimate backdoor government” and therefore everything they do must be faulty, is not helping the situation. Let’s leave partisan politicking aside for now and focus on navigating safely through the Covid-19-induced health/economic storm.’
Read here (Malaysiakini, May 27, 2021)
