PETALING JAYA: The unelected Perikatan Nasional (PN) government has failed to solve the health, political, economic, education and confidence crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (pix) said today.
It should be the New Year resolution for any government to take on this quintuple crisis, he pointed out.
“A nationwide lockdown imposed after daily Covid-19 infections increased by hundreds early this year, was supposed to break Covid-19 in Malaysia,” Lim said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the government mishandled the situation with 110,485 infections by Dec 30, more than (the reported cases in) China.
“Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 infections is now the second highest in Asean countries after Indonesia, with us recording nearly two thousand cases daily. There is real concern that our health facilities may not be able to cope with the escalating number of infections.”
The Bagan MP said it was worse that the PN government refuses to cough up RM2.1 billion to make early purchases of the Covid-19 vaccines, resulting in Malaysia receiving them only in two to three months after Singapore is taking delivery.
“Such a stingy and miserly refusal to make available RM2.1 billon is a bigger blunder and more incompetent than Malaysia’s downgrade in sovereign credit ratings by Fitch recently,” the former finance minister said.
“The education crisis has adverse long-term consequences for our future generation. With students only attending classes for four months this year, there is an urgent need to spend an additional RM4 billion to buy everyone a laptop and upgrade internet connectivity to allow for on-line learning. We cannot afford our young not to learn anymore.”
Lim also said the PN government’s failure to address political instability caused by its slim two-eat Parliamentary majority, health, economic and education crisis has led to a crisis of confidence.
Vietnam has even surpassed Malaysia economically with a larger GDP for the first time, he pointed out.
