MP SPEAKS | The Perikatan Nasional federal government has dismayed Malaysians by failing to announce any concrete and substantial financial package to rescue the economy following the extension of the movement control order (MCO) from Feb 4 to 18. 

While Chinese New Year celebrations will be muted and severely affected, what is of greater significance is the absence of an all-out commitment to save jobs and businesses.

Ministers responsible for health, tourism, welfare, human resources and economy must resign for failing to save jobs and businesses, especially the beleaguered tourism industry, and gross incompetency in managing the Covid-19 public health crisis.

As at Feb 2, Malaysia recorded 222,628 cases, of which 47,847 are active with 791 deaths. The PN government has succeeded in turning Malaysia into the worst Covid-19 Asean nation in per capita terms.

This spike in Covid-19 infection is a damning indictment of the unelected PN government’s failure to manage, control and check this global pandemic. PN’s refusal to fully implement the 3Ts (testing, tracing and treatment) is unforgivable, including all close contacts of Covid-19 positive patients.

Instead of bearing full responsibility for their failure, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has taken full advantage to secure his political survival following the loss of his parliamentary majority, by suspending Parliament.

Is suspending Parliament the opportunity for Muhyiddin to break his promises, until the health crisis is over, of an automatic extension of bank loan moratorium(except the Top 20), increasing monthly welfare payments to RM1,000 including the unemployed, EPF self-withdrawals, rental relief or subsidies for shopping complexes and direct financial aid to B40s, workers and business establishments?

PN is still comatose and doing nothing to overcome the dire straits of our tourism industry, which lost a shocking RM100 billion in revenue last year. Penang’s Red Rock Hotel manager Jeffrey Lim has been holding a placard and shouting “tiga ringgit, tiga ringgit”, desperately selling his hotel’s nasi lemak by the roadside.

Bernama reported Lim as saying, “We have to depend on the hotel to survive… there is nothing much from the government for the hotel industry." Is the government not ashamed?

This is not the only evidence of the PN government and the ministers’ indifference and incompetency. Malaysia lost foreign direct investment (FDI) at a worse rate than Asean and globally in 2020, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). Malaysia’s actual FDI last year was down 68 percent, compared to the average contraction of the Asean region of 31 percent and the global average contraction of 42 percent.

At a time when many Malaysians are losing their jobs and businesses through no fault of their own, ministers who failed to do their jobs should be replaced. Just as ordinary Malaysians who are charged in court with breaching the standing operating procedures (SOPs) for MCO, there should be no double standards for ministers and deputy ministers who should not be exempted from being charged in court.

LIM GUAN ENG is Bagan MP, former finance minister, and former Penang chief minister.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.