KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has called on the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government today to hold an emergency Parliament meeting to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic that has worsened in recent weeks.
Lim also accused Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin for keeping silent on the issue and failing to claim responsibility for his Cabinet’s purported failure, a stark contrast to it claiming credit for the previous positive management of the pandemic.
“The time has come for the PN government to hold meetings with all political parties to discuss the Covid-19 public health crisis,” the former finance minister said in a statement.
“An emergency Parliamentary meeting is the best avenue to rally public support and forge national unity to enable Malaysians to come together to overcome Covid-19 together.”
Lim also accused PN leaders of “selfishly focusing more on their own political survival” than the nation’s survival from the pandemic.
“Every other day we see component party members of PN from Umno, Bersatu and PAS, having emergency meetings not to discuss Covid-19, but how they can fix up their so-called ‘allies’ in PN.
“It is highly irresponsible for Umno leaders to call for early general elections in the midst of the greatest crisis in the country’s history,” he said.
He said the so-called failure of the PN government is evident in its “abysmal failure” to secure an early delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines, drawing comparison to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who received his vaccine jab yesterday.
“Malaysia has to wait for another two months due to the ineptitude of the PN government more focused on political survival than the people’s health. The excuse for the delay in that Malaysia cannot find a paltry sum of RM2.1 billion in an emergency crisis, displays the highest level of ignorance and incompetence of our ministers and Cabinet.
“How many more Malaysians will die because of the delay in vaccine delivery?” he asked.
Lim had yesterday cited Health Ministry (MoH) director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah’s prediction that the country could register up to 8,000 new daily infections as early as March as a sign of the government’s failure and incompetence in handling the pandemic.
He also condemned the government’s handling of the procurement process of Covid-19 vaccines, saying the delay in securing the vaccine doses could cause more lives to be lost due to the virus.
