Lim Guan Eng
KUCHING (May 22): The Democratic Action Party (DAP) is urging the Perikatan Nasional (PN)-led government to convene Parliament to deliberate on the Covid-19 pandemic-related issues and with assurance that all its 42 MPs would not support any no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
National DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the PN-led government should convene Parliament for an emergency meeting, similar to what Johor had done.
“To placate the chronic political insecurity of Muhyiddin, should Parliament be convened immediately, DAP guarantees that our 42 MPs would not support any no-confidence motion against him, but would only discuss about Covid-19 prevention measures, National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme and related matters,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Lim, who is Bagan MP, said the Johor Sultan had proposed a meeting of all Johor MPs, members of the Johor State Legislative Assembly (DUN) and the Johor state government to meet and discuss together over Covid-19 prevention measures, as an alternative to the suspension of Parliament.
He opined that the approach by the Johor Sultan was better than the current PN-led government’s performance of ‘stumbling from one policy mistake and standard operating procedures (SOP) U-turn, to the next’.
He pointed out that the country’s record number of 6,806 daily cases and 59 deaths yesterday was a ‘damning indictment of the failure of the PN government in managing the Covid-19 pandemic, until Malaysia is not only the worst in Asia-Pacific in per capita terms, but is also the Asean champion in daily infections’.
“The Covid-19 infectivity rate (Rt) or R-Naught value, based on daily cases nationwide, has climbed up to 1.1, whilst the vaccination rate is also behind schedule at 2.6 per cent of the population for two doses, even lower than Indonesia’s vaccination rate of 3.4 per cent for two doses.
“Such a shameful performance should wake up the ‘slumbering’ PN administration that they must adopt not just a whole of government approach, but also a whole of people approach to prevail in the desperate battle against Covid-19,” he said.
Lim said PN must also give a full explanation why the Covid-19 crisis had become so appalling despite RM60 billion in direct funding being allocated to battle the pandemic.
He said last year, RM38 billion was allocated for the Covid-19 fund, RM17 billion this year and another RM5 billion appropriated from the National Trust Fund.
“This RM60 billion in direct Covid-19 funding, channelled since last year, does not include the RM567 billion allocated to attempt to revive the economy, but has failed to pull the country out of the economic recession with a negative growth rate for four consecutive quarters.
“The government must come clean on how all these funds had been spent when the people did not enjoy or feel the benefit of a total of RM627 billion in government funding since last year,” said Lim, who is the country’s former finance minister.