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PETALING JAYA: Covid-19 could have been controlled under regular law and there was no reason to proclaim a state of emergency to combat the pandemic, says Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
“Since the Emergency was proclaimed, there has not been a single act to combat Covid-19 that has needed to be called.
“All the measures could have been taken under normal circumstances,” the former prime minister said in a statement broadcast on social media on Monday (February 15).
Dr. Mahathir said that the real reason was because Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had lost support as Prime Minister.
Dr Mahathir also said that the country’s economy had been affected, with a national debt reaching RM1.3 trillion.
The country also faces a high unemployment rate with 773,000 people out of work, many of them graduates.
“One in four graduates is forced to work in fields unrelated to what they studied in college,” he said.
He added that many workers and small merchants could not feed their families because they could not work and had not received the assistance they were promised.
Dr. Mahathir also said that the country’s economic growth had slowed by 5.6% and that the government has set an unrealistic target of a 7.5% rebound this year.
He said that the Emergency has also scared off foreign investors who have decided to channel their investments to neighboring countries.
“The government has blocked investors instead of welcoming them,” he said.
Dr. Mahathir also claimed that the Emergency was invalid because it did not follow the proper process.
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