Kit Siang 'congratulates' KJ over cheaper vaccines, but says outlook still grim

 

COVID-19 | DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has offered a conditional congratulation to Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin over the procurement of vaccines, while still maintaining a grim outlook.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, meanwhile, rubbished a claim that Malaysia could not have made funds available earlier to procure vaccines sooner.

"I congratulate Khairy if Malaysia is getting cheaper Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines than Belgium," Kit Siang said in a statement.

A leak revealed that Belgium is getting the Pfizer vaccine for 12 euros (RM59.43) per dose.

The price of vaccines is confidential due to non-disclosure agreements (NDA) signed with the manufacturers.

However, Khairy yesterday hinted that Malaysia has gotten a better deal.

Despite this, Kit Siang still had a negative outlook for the near future.

"The time schedule for the receipt of the first batch of vaccines in Malaysia, is not going to affect the grim picture of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia in the first quarter or even the second quarter of next year," he said.

Malaysia is only due to receive the first batch of vaccines in February at the earliest, while Singapore had received theirs on Monday.

Khairy explained that Singapore was able to secure vaccines earlier as it had deeper pockets.

However, Guan Eng - who is a former finance minister - said this reason was unacceptable.

"What is a paltry RM2.1 billion compared to the Perikatan Nasional government's RM305 billion Prihatin economic stimulus package this year against the negative economic impact of Covid-19?

"I do not believe that the Finance Ministry refused to make available RM2.1 billion or RM3 billion to make earlier purchases of the Covid-19 vaccines," he said in a separate statement.

Guan Eng added that the Finance Ministry should clarify the matter.

"If this is indeed the case, then such a stingy and miserly refusal to make available RM2.1 billion or RM 3 billion is a bigger blunder and more incompetent than Malaysia’s downgrade in sovereign credit ratings by Fitch recently," he said.

The Strait Times reported that one of the reasons Singapore was able to secure vaccines early was because they had formed a vaccine panel to advise the government as early as April.

It had signed about 40 NDAs with manufacturers ahead of time, giving them insight into preliminary reports. - Mkini