PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Najib Razak says the government can’t have it both ways after it asked people to practise two weeks’ of self-lockdown but allowed the economy to remain largely open at the same time.
Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday asked Malaysians to avoid going out to reduce the transmission of Covid-19 and help the health ministry.
Senior minister of security Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who was with him at the joint press conference, said the decision not to implement a full lockdown was made to safeguard businesses and livelihoods.
Responding to the pair, Najib took to Facebook to say the government “can’t have their cake and eat it too” as the goals of the two messages were contradictory.
He said if everyone remained at home and this is 100% successful, then the small traders would suffocate because there would be no customers.
If preserving businesses is 100% successful, then the number of Covid-19 cases won’t go down and would increase, he added.
Najib questioned whether it would be considered a success if both aims were only “50%” met, with businesses making half of their normal revenue and the number of cases cut by half to 3,000.
“This situation will continue for some time until the people and small traders can no longer survive. At that point, the government would have to give more concessions even though the number of Covid-19 cases is still high.”
He said this would lead to the number of cases rising once again, ultimately leading to a fourth movement control order.
“Does this story sound familiar?” he asked sarcastically. - FMT
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