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MP SPEAKS | In his New Year’s message, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin listed five priorities for 2021 in an integrated post-Covid-19 national recovery strategy.
But in less than two weeks, these five priorities cannot stand up to public scrutiny, particularly priority three to “ensure political stability with a strong emphasis on good governance as the basis for sustainable economic recovery” and priority four to ” defend the sovereignty of the country and strengthen Malaysia’s position on the world stage ”.
We were once about 50 positions behind China, the country where the pandemic started and which had a population 40 times that of Malaysia.
But now we surpass China in the number of Covid-19 cases under the third wave of the pandemic. With uncontrolled increases in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, we have left China far behind as we now rank 68th, while China ranks 82nd among the countries in the world with the most accumulated total of Covid-19 cases. .
We have overtaken Myanmar and if we continue to have a daily increase of 3,000 cases, we will take a triple jump sometime today and will be ranked 65th among the countries with the most accumulated total cases.
Where is “political stability” and “good governance” when Parliament and state assembly sessions must be suspended?
Is this what Muhyiddin meant by his priority four “strengthening Malaysia’s position on the world stage”?
Can Muhyiddin explain why parliaments in other countries may function in a state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but not in Malaysia?
This is why Muhyiddin should not pile up more infamies in Malaysia by suspending the legislative and scrutinizing function of Parliament and state assemblies, particularly when the war on disease cannot be won unless there is “total government” and strategy and society approach ”.
It is encouraging to note that the Director General of Health, Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah, revealed yesterday that the Ministry of Health is currently in talks with private healthcare providers and is looking to work together with them to increase the capacity of the healthcare system of Malaysia, which is currently on the brink.
This should have been done right at the beginning of the pandemic, but it is better late than never.
In fact, the Ministry of Health must not only enlist the cooperation of private healthcare providers to accept non-Covid cases from government hospitals, but also to develop a long-term Covid-19 plan to avoid another MCO at all coast.
Penang State Executive Councilor for Housing, Local Government and Country Planning Jagdeep Singh Deo has said that around 100 private clinics of the Penang Society of Physicians are ready to offer free vaccination to Penang residents .
The Ministry of Health must have a long-term plan, which includes the mobilization of all the country’s private doctors in the war against the dreaded disease.
When will the government be able to overcome this black mark and establish a strategy and a “whole of government” and “all of society” approach to the war against the pandemic?
Muhyiddin’s second priority four black mark is Human Rights Watch’s 2021 World Report released yesterday. He said that human rights in Malaysia have deteriorated under the government of Perikatan Nasional, which aggressively cracked down on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and attacked the media.
Is the cabinet prepared to respond to all of these allegations of human rights violations from the Human Rights Watch Report, particularly with reference to the cases of South China morning post correspondent Tashny Sukumaran, Blue code editor Boo Su-Lyn, as well as the contempt proceedings against Malaysiakini Editor-in-chief Steven Gan?
Will the third black mark be delivered when Transparency International (TI) releases its 2020 TI Corruption Perception Index (CPI) after Malaysia achieved its best performance in 25 years in the TI CPI 2019 Report, which had a six point improvement in a single year? for TI CPI score of 53 and 10 places for TI CPI ranking of 51?
There have been other black marks of late, such as the report that Vietnam would overtake Malaysia to become the fourth-largest economy in Southeast Asia and the second Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking released on December 21 last year, where Malaysia lost. against New Zealand. Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Bangladesh.
Will Malaysia Get a Better Report on the Bloomberg Resilience Index for January 2021?
It must be the task of all political parties and all MPs to “strengthen Malaysia’s position on the world stage” and this must be the unifying issue in Parliament, which must not be suspended.
But is Muhyiddin prepared to announce that the emergency declared solely to combat the pandemic will not result in the suspension of Parliament and state assemblies to demonstrate that there is political stability and good governance in Malaysia?
LIM KIT SIANG is Iskandar Puteri’s DAP deputy.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author / contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
