Daim: PN fails to instil confidence with confusing policies

The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government has not been functioning efficiently as every ministry appeared to be working in silos and the government has failed to prioritise public interest, veteran politician Daim Zainuddin said.

The public announcements by ministers and even the prime minister himself did not instil confidence, Daim (above) said.

As a result, he said, most Malaysians were feeling abandoned by the government.

"The people have yet to see even one example of a concerted multi-ministerial effort to fight the pandemic, apart from the presence of some military personnel at roadblocks," Daim was quoted as saying in an interview with Free Malaysia Today.

The absence of a “uniform direction” in fighting the pandemic could be seen in the government’s failure to provide access to a stable internet connection for students learning from home, he said.

“Why are the ministry and agencies in charge of communications and multimedia not sitting down with the Education Ministry to see how they can resolve connection issues for students being forced to study online? Students feel abandoned by this government, and rightly so.

“People are no longer glued to their TV sets waiting for the evening press conferences. No one is listening to the ever-changing standard operating procedures (SOPs) or the unhelpful regurgitating of numbers of infections or names of clusters,” he said.

Half of the ministers have been silent about what their ministries were doing to tackle the pandemic, said Daim.

“Those who do speak only serve to pour even more confusion and worsen an already dire situation. The people now say that the unclear, inconsistent SOPs stand for ‘Semua Orang Pening’ (everyone has a headache)," he added.

He also shot at the government's decisions for not being based on science when it was decided that quarantine periods for ministers would be reduced to three days and to possibly extend this to business travellers.

'The people were only seeing double-standards in enforcement'

He also claimed that the people were only seeing double-standards in enforcement, adding that the virus did not care whether one was a minister or not.

“There is no dichotomy between the pandemic and the economy. Get your policy right on the pandemic and it will follow that your economy will improve as well.

“If you get your policy on the pandemic wrong, the economy will suffer and will not recover," said Daim, who formerly headed the Council of Eminent Persons.

He also noted that Malaysians have yet to feel the benefit of stimulus packages announced by the PN government.

Many suggestions have been made by opposition MPs, industry leaders, health experts, NGOs, and even people on the street, but the government does not seem to be listening, he said.

“When the prime minister makes special announcements on Covid-19 aid packages, they are often so off the mark that they fail to address the issues raised by the very industries that are suffering.”

Daim also criticised the opposition parties, particularly those that formed the Pakatan Harapan government, for not able to provide effective checks and balances.

“They too have been in government, even if it was just for 22 months. Each of the previous ministers can be the shadow minister to their previous portfolio.”

Most Malaysians now believe that neither the opposition nor the parties in power have any clue of how to handle the pandemic and therefore have stopped following political developments, he said.

“Regardless, people have voiced their hope that the emergency will end before Aug 1. They want Parliament and the state assemblies to sit and for elected representatives to be able to do the jobs they were constitutionally voted in to do," Daim added. 

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