MP SPEAKS | What is the govt's plan to safely reopen our borders?
MP SPEAKS | A week ago, on Feb 8, 2022, the chairperson of the National Recovery Council (NRC), Muhyiddin Yassin, announced that the council had proposed for the borders of the country to be open to travellers without the need for quarantine as early as March 1, 2022.
This meeting was attended by a number of ministers who are part of the NRC including Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, and other ministers including the Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali, Education Minister Radzi Jidin, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mustapa Mohamed and Works Minister Fadillah Yusof, among others.
A few days later, the defence minister and the head of the quartet of ministers that meets to decide on SOPs and opening of various economic sectors said that the NRC proposal had yet to be discussed in cabinet. (This is the same Minister who flouted SOPs and was fined by the Health Ministry for attending an event for the BN machinery ahead of the upcoming Johor state election).
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob would also later say that the cabinet would make a decision on the border reopening soon, expressing concerns that an influx of tourists may also lead to an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases.
While it is understandable that the cabinet should have the final say on a major issue such as quarantine-free travel into the country, the manner in which this announcement was handled shows the total lack of coordination and communication between the chairman of the NRC, the prime minister and the key cabinet ministers.
Surely the decision to make the proposal to reopen our borders could have been communicated by the NRC chairperson to the prime minister earlier so that a clear timeline and proper processes and procedures can be put in place to prepare for such a border reopening.
Lack of coordination
The fact that so many Ministers were at the NRC meeting and yet they were not able to coordinate the border reopening “narrative” shows the current dysfunction within the government on important policy matters, including decisions that affect millions of jobs and livelihoods such as the tourism sector.
The lack of proper communication and coordination probably resulted in many Malaysians and perhaps foreigners as well making travel arrangements into and out of the country in March thinking that quarantine-free travel will be implemented soon.
When a senior minister like Hishammuddin Hussein openly questions the decisions announced and recommended by the NRC, the power and effectiveness of the NRC will inevitably be called into question. What more when the prime minister is seen to be undermining the NRC chairperson’s announcement?
Some of the responsibility of this poor coordination also has to fall on the NRC and its secretariat. No one is sure as to which ministry is responsible for “hosting” or providing the human resources to run the NRC, including the secretariat.
My best guess is that the Finance Ministry (MOF) is “lending” some of its resources since both of the NRC meetings chaired by Muhyiddin have been held there. But there isn’t even a webpage or a Facebook page dedicated to the NRC. This means that the policy decisions and the rationale for such decisions are not made known to the public.
Muhyiddin has to resort to making NRC related announcements via his own Facebook page. In an ironic twist, the Facebook page for “Majlis Pemulihan Negara” (MPN) is linked to the national recovery council that was started by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2021.
That is why the government must sort out a clear and coordinated pathway towards reopening our borders safely while balancing the need to protect the health and security of our people.
We now are much more aware of the effectiveness of various public health interventions and we have a much better understanding of how the virus behaves. With our high vaccination rates and continued public health interventions, we propose the following pathway for the Malaysian government to undertake to reopen our borders:
(1) To set a clear timeline and pathway leading towards the reopening of the borders, and not just an arbitrary announcement of a specific date which has caused much confusion and inconvenience.
(2) To categorise countries into different risk levels based on their Covid-19 public health response including vaccination rates and overall healthcare response. This will allow us to prepare specific pathways and timelines to reopen borders to each category of countries based on properly defined risk and health parameters.
(3) To establish vaccinated travel lanes (VTL) for lower-risk countries allowing fully vaccinated travellers from those countries to come in by showing proof of a negative PCR test (48 or 72 hours before departure) and also a rapid PCR test at the port of entry in Malaysia. We can then carry out a "test and release concept" where once tested negative in Malaysia, they are released without quarantine but required to download MySejahtera and activate the MyTrace function for more effective contact tracing if needed. On days three and seven of their stay, they will need to test again using RTK Self-Test kits and report their results to MySejahtera.
(4) To ensure that mask mandates and other non-medical public health interventions such as physical distancing, good personal hygiene at public places and flexible working arrangements continue.
(5) To enhance healthcare capacity leading up to the border re-openings not just in preparation for the need to repurpose hospital beds for Covid-19 patients, but also to increase the workforce to handle the possible increase in workload.
We ask the government to announce a timetable for the reopening of borders with Singapore given the already established protocols and processes such as the mutual VTL and the mutual recognition of the digital vaccination certificates for both countries. The positive economic impact from the reopening of our borders with Singapore will also be significant especially for the leisure and tourism sector.
It is clear that other countries are moving to an endemic phase of Covid-19 recovery. More and more travel restrictions are being lifted in Europe, North America, Australia and other parts of Asia.
With our high vaccination and booster rates, there should be a clear pathway towards the safe and orderly reopening of our borders to quarantine free travel especially among those who have been fully vaccinated and boosted.
This can allow Malaysia to bounce back from this pandemic stronger and faster. But when the left hand of the government is not talking to the right hand, what ends up happening is confusion and uncertainty among the policymakers as well as the general public, which is quickly becoming emblematic of this “Keluarga Malaysia” government.
ONG KIAN MING is Bangi MP and DAP assistant political education director. KELVIN YII is Bandar Kuching MP.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
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