Govt must take responsibility for botched Covid-19 response - Guan Eng

 

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has called on the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government to admit fault for the botched National Immunisation Programme (NIP) and mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lim cited Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s recent critiques in claiming that PN is blaming everyone except themselves for the health crisis.

“The PN government is blaming everyone except themselves for the botched NIP, the gross mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the economic crisis.

“Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has urged PN to learn from its mistakes in the battle against Covid-19, criticising the bureaucracy within the government as a ‘key barrier’ to both the country’s vaccination efforts and accepting much-needed international assistance and cooperation.

“The PN government is highly irresponsible and incompetent in consistently pushing the narrative that the Covid-19 health crisis, economic and political crisis has nothing to do with them,” he said in a statement issued today.

Hishamuddin had previously called for consistent standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the current movement control order (MCO) and to expedite the approval of vaccines.

Lim said these are old suggestions that have been repeatedly stated by Pakatan Harapan to no avail.

He urged Hishammuddin to instead call for a change of approach with regards to the battle against Covid-19.

“Hishammuddin should be pushing for a change of approach from bringing people to vaccines to bringing vaccines to the people by increasing the number of vaccine administration centres (PPV) by another 2,000 from the current 381 in the country.

“Increasing the number of PPVs will help bring vaccines closer to the people, especially in the rural areas,” Lim said.

He also called on Hishammuddin to admit that the rising daily infections and death toll is due to double standards in enforcement between VIPs and the ordinary rakyat as well as repeated U-turns in the compliance of the MCO’s SOPs.

Lim also claimed that the recent policy flip-flops between ministries on the operation of businesses during MCO has had a devastating impact on the economy.

“Unless the PN government admits where they went wrong, they will never be able to correct its faults, reset and take the correct path to overcome the Covid-19 and economic crisis,” Lim said.  - Mkini