Opposition livid as PM leaves after briefing, Zafrul to handle winding-up

 

PARLIAMENT | Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will not be conducting the winding-up session on his parliamentary briefing regarding the National Recovery Plan.

Instead, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz has been assigned for the winding-up speech.

This caused a massive uproar in the House as numerous opposition MPs had demanded answers from the prime minister during the winding-up speech.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was livid and demanded that Dewan Rakyat speaker Azhar Azizan Harun does not allow this to happen.

"Never before in history - since Independence, since the establishment of Parliament - where questions to the prime minister and emergency are answered by the finance minister.

"We hold you responsible. The speaker must have courage. You are the speaker of the House," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob attempted to pacify the opposition by saying the prime minister’s briefing was on the National Recovery Plan and the opposition’s questions were more about the emergency and the constitution.

Zafrul also pointed out that he is the coordinating minister for the National Recovery Plan.

Eventually, Zafrul was allowed to continue with his winding-up speech.

He touched upon the issue surrounding contract doctors, saying that the government had decided to extend their contracts by two years as an immediate solution, while the government came up with a more holistic solution that will have short-term, mid-term and long-term plans for these contract doctors.

He added that the government had also given contract doctors the option to extend their contract by a maximum of four years on top of their initial two-year contract if they were to pursue specialisation.

However, this was met with derision from Dr Lee Boon Chye (Harapan-Gopeng), who is a doctor by profession, who said anyone who is familiar with the career progression of a specialist doctor would know that four years is not enough for a doctor to specialise.

“Four years is actually not enough. This shows that those who made the decision don’t know the career pathway for a specialist.

“Four years is the minimum for them to finish their Master of medicine, and after that time is needed for gazettement, so four years is definitely not enough. Please re-examine (this decision),” he said, with support from Kelvin Yii (Harapan-Bandar Kuching), who is also a doctor by profession.

Zafrul later attempted to respond to Anwar’s question about “factory clusters” but after he kept getting interrupted by opposition MPs, International Trade and Industry (Miti) Minister Azmin Ali offered to help out.

The finance minister had earlier read out some data about factory clusters, saying that within the period of the total lockdown, from June 1 to July 23, there have been 373 clusters, or 50.7 percent of the clusters, originating from factories, with a total of 35,642 cases.

Anwar had refuted this, saying that Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had said there have been 639 factory clusters, with a total of 95,156 cases.

Seizing upon this exchange, Khalid Samad (Harapan-Shah Alam) had questioned Zafrul on whether it was “irresponsible” for Miti to reopen the factories.

Zafrul tried to brush the question off, but that was when Azmin stood up holding up an infographic.

“I would like to ask for permission to help the minister explain. First of all, all decisions made are made collectively in the National Security Council,” Azmin explained.

As Azmin continued to attempt to explain about factory clusters, opposition MPs continuously interrupted him with quips referring to previous scandals the minister had been in, as well as to make fun of his infographics.

However, Ong Kian Ming (Harapan-Bangi) added to Azmin’s explanation, saying that there needs to be clarification on whether these factory clusters started within the factories or from the workers’ dormitories.

Ong said many of these workers’ dormitories are cramped, which makes it easy for Covid-19 to spread. Thus, it is likely that many of these factory clusters originated from the dormitories, rather than the factories themselves.

Zafrul also addressed Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s (Pejuang-Langkawi) comments that the government’s National Recovery Council is a copy of the latter’s earlier suggestion for an independent, apolitical council of the same name.

The minister said it is slightly different as Mahathir’s suggestion would “sideline” the government.

“The government is of the opinion that for Malaysia to successfully get out of the pandemic, a whole-of-nation approach is very important.

“The suggestion to sideline the government’s role will only worsen the situation,” Zafrul said. - Mkini