Expect a rise in prices, crime and poverty during CMCO

A small section of the roof of my house had been leaking for the past few weeks. Each time it rained, there would be water on the wall and the floor. I was concerned about the possibility of an electrical short circuit as there are several power points, which I regularly use, on that wall.

However, I could not get it repaired as the movement control order (MCO), which came into effect on March 18, was still in force.

On May 4, the MCO gave way to the conditional MCO and most businesses were allowed to recommence. As such, I was able to call someone over to repair the roof.

He did it yesterday, and charged me RM700 for it. The leak involved only a small section of the roof and I had not expected it to cost more than RM500.

I realised then that the prices of goods and services will almost certainly escalate, if not now, by the end of the year. Why? For more than a month, most businesses and contract workers have been forced by law to stay at home. Except for those in the food business, and others whose services were not blocked by the MCO, most businessmen and self-employed service providers did not earn anything.

They will now try to recover their losses; some of them possibly in double quick time.

Also, many factories and firms here and in other countries were closed; in fact, in some countries they still remain closed. This means there is likely to be a shortage in supply of at least some goods and this will drive up prices.

So, expect the prices of goods and services in most areas to go up, although in some areas we may be offered discounts to clear existing stock so that they can meet their annual sales targets.

Of course, the authorities will, as a reflex action, warn the mamak shops not to raise the price of roti canai, and farm produce retailers not to raise the price of chickens and eggs. And while the enforcement authorities scrutinise these guys, the big boys will quietly raise the prices of their products as, for example, happened with tinned milk and beverage products in the past.

Welcome to the new normal.

We will not only find that the distance between one person and the other in the supermarket queue has increased but also that the distance between our money and the goods and services it can purchase has also increased.

The Covid-19 pandemic, and the resultant MCO, has not only taken lives but has damaged, if not destroyed, livelihoods too. I don’t know how many people from the upper middle income group will soon be in the lower middle income group and how many from the latter will be categorised as poor and hardcore poor.

The only people who have been spared are the 1.6 million civil servants. Their jobs are secure and salaries guaranteed, mostly paid for by taxpayers in the private sector.

For most people, it is a double whammy, as the expression goes: we have less money than before March 18 but the value of the money has dropped, or will very soon, due to the increase in the prices of goods and services.

The incidence of poverty will rise too, as employers have been telling us that a huge number of Malaysians have been laid off work, or soon will be, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its MCO aftermath.

The Malaysian Employers Federation says about two million people could lose their jobs this year. An April 9 report quoted the Statistics Department as saying about half of the self-employed in the country had lost their earnings due to the MCO. How many more have lost their incomes since then?

Where will those who have lost their jobs go? What will they do? Has the government worked out some plan? I hope so, as it has had more than a month to do so after implementing the MCO. Has the human resources ministry – which was not too involved in fighting the Covid-19 virus – developed some strategy? I hope so.

And what about the millions of foreign workers – both with and without legal documents – moving around the country, especially in the cities? Official records show there are about 2.3 million foreign workers, but it’s an open secret that there are millions more. A substantial number of them would be without work. Who’s taking care of them?

How about the thousands of refugees in the country? Officially, there were 179,521 UNHCR cardholders in Malaysia in March, about 101,584 of whom were Rohingya. Is there a plan to deal with them and new refugees who are arriving at our shores?

Will they and the foreign workers, especially those who are undocumented, become a burden to the existing social, health and welfare infrastructure?

Even before the pandemic, economists expected 2020 to be a bad year economically for the world. The disease has made it worse everywhere, including in Malaysia.

How will the foreigners without work survive? Is there a plan to help them return home or to let them work in other areas needing workers?

Also, will the rise in the number of unemployed locals and foreigners cause a rise in crime? I hope the police department is preparing for a spike in crime, especially robberies and petty crime. I expect snatch thefts to increase over the next few weeks and months.

For policemen, the real police work will begin now, for I do not consider putting up roadblocks to arrest MCO offenders real police work. Neither do I consider tracing some idiot or ignorant guy who makes some stupid remark on social media real police work.

On top of this, we are still not out of the woods where Covid-19 is concerned. Malaysia has managed to contain the virus, not eradicate it. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is still in the air, waiting for victims. That means we cannot and should not let our guard down.

We need to practise social distancing and regularly wash our hands with soap for a long while yet; otherwise, we’ll find ourselves returning to another period under a lockdown – and that would be devastating. - FMT