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YOUR OPINION | ‘Khairy’s pathetic lament that Singapore has’ deep pockets ‘is a national affront …’
Why M’sia is months behind S’pore in receiving the Covid-19 vaccine
Aegis: This makes no sense. Singapore and other countries get the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine early because they have the urgency and the competence to solve a problem.
The return obtained when a country recovers its economy two or three months earlier far exceeds the investment. This is simple math.
See what they did to ensure early vaccination. Our government allocated the fund for the vaccine, but took its time to develop a vaccination plan. The rakyat suffers again.
Vijay47: In fairness to you, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, that Singapore “signed the Pfizer deal” months before us, is six out of a dozen and a half from the other.
Had there been subsequent price and efficacy issues with the vaccine, Singapore would have had an egg on its face and you would have been regarded as Pahlawan Negara, complete with silver keris and all.
In the case, that pesky little island looks great at being proactive and efficient in making international arrangements to deal with Covid-19. So I’ll let it go This is life.
But his pathetic lament that Singapore has “deep pockets” is a national affront, coming on the heels of rumors that Malaysia will benefit from donations from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Have we come to this, Khairy? Has a once proud and prosperous nation been reduced to the sad condition of Asia’s beggar, songkok in hand and, in the words of Henry Kissinger, a hopeless case?
As shameful as this deterioration is, far worse are the reasons for our fall into begging.
We are now in this despicable state just because of that supposed monument to corruption, Umno, the party you wear so proudly on your sleeve.
One would have thought that having a prime minister convicted seven times for financial depravity would have been lesson enough.
Rather, it appears to have mutated into an urge for even more vermin to jump on the gravy train, making hay as the sun shines, looting as the virus rages.
Does our leadership care? Like the fucking hell they do. Our political elite still seem committed to making money on both the swings and the merry-go-round.
Jedi Yoda: While Singapore has deep pockets (due to decades of careful planning by relatively competent MPs), Malaysia is in deep trouble (due to the back door slam of greedy MPs).
While the Singapore Parliament was in full swing debating and making decisions on any Covid issue in April, the Malaysian Parliament was in idle mode, not calling a session for months of the Muhyiddin Yassin government for fear of losing power.
Dhimmi Dummies: Nothing like a real problem, especially a global one that pits us against the world, to shed light on incompetence. Pure incompetence.
If we were like any other oil producing country like Norway, we would have had untold riches, if we had not turned a blind eye to massive corruption.
If we had a government with even a small brain, we would be on par with or above countries like Singapore.
The situation we find ourselves in is the sum total of the neglect of greed and stupidity in the years of bad government. We were run by greedy politicians, mostly crutch-minded and stupid politics.
Now we hear of empty pockets in our resource-rich nation versus a nation with deep pockets but no resources. A country that has to buy us water to survive.
We brag about supporting the greatest number of royalty, super rich politicians and cronies, but we can’t buy medicine for the people.
Our neighbors and the world laugh at us for supporting mediocrity. We will suffer this: the rakyat always does and will also pay for it with our lives.
Illustrated Globalist: We are an upper middle income nation and we should be able to afford the vaccine. If not, ask former Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to return some of the missing 1MDB money.
I think the truth is that the government was sleeping at work. Khairy, the Ministry of Health and DG Health should have started the process months ago. Now Khairy is making the excuse for lack of funds.
JW: Singapore beat us again. We don’t have a lot of money because we can’t grow and manage the economy as well, despite having many more natural resources and people.
Instead, Malaysia has an overwhelming amount of diversion due to all levels of corruption in the government and because our lack of meritocracy has failed the economy.
If we have a prosperous economy but still can’t get vaccinated as quickly as Singapore, then Khairy must be sleeping at work.
Otherwise, how is it that Singapore was able to sign a deal with Pfizer months earlier? What were you doing months before, Khairy, if you didn’t sleep?
OCT: Singapore has a lot of money. We also. Our ministers have a lot of money but not the nation. Most of our contracts are opaque, while other countries have transparency, which can be disclosed in Parliament.
In every crisis, our parliamentarians create the opportunity to do more for themselves. Has the rakyat seen any of our ministers in jail for any crime?
Our ministers are super clean and honest. Trust them and vote for them again. You can’t have a better group than the current group.
Jetson: We should be one of the wealthy nations until Dr. Mahathir Mohamad took over and swept many corruption issues under the rug.
From that day on, subsequent leaders had treated the Treasury as their personal asset and today we have to queue for the Covid-19 vaccine.
How to blame Pfizer for not trusting us, as they would want to see the money up front before handing it over.
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