Najib: Enough trying and failing, new govt needs to win Covid-19 war

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak has called on the new government to put people first, not cronies or factory towkays, adding that Malaysians have had enough of an administration that tries but does not succeed.

“Don’t repeatedly say ‘we’ve tried our best’ but keep failing and failing.

“This is not the time to ‘try’ or ‘effort’ anymore. We already have experience and most importantly data! Use data and science.

“We can no longer see the death toll. Enough tears. We can no longer bear to see the number of active cases increase and need to solve the problem as soon as possible,” said the Pekan MP in a Facebook post.

Najib said even though three months and 10 days (102 days) have passed since the movement control order 3.0 started and two months, seven days (68 days) have passed since the National Recovery Plan was announced, Malaysia was still deeply mired in crisis.

“We are still breaking the record for new cases almost every day. We are still in the top 10 new Covid-19 cases in the world (regardless of population size). We are still among the highest in the world for new Covid-19 case rates and new deaths (in terms of population size),” he lamented.

He pointed out that the number of active cases had reached 260,000 and was still rising sharply.

“We hit one million Covid-19 cases on July 25. In less than a month, we passed 1.5 million cases.

“Our economic outlook has been cut to zero by rating company Fitch and cut in half by the government from seven percent to 3-4 percent.

“Our stock market is still the lowest in the Asia Pacific and the second lowest in the world.

"These are facts and realities. Not fiction,” he said.

He said the Covid-19 situation was so alarming that despite the easing of restrictions, many were afraid to step out of their homes and those who had to go out for work risked infection.

Amidst all this, businesses and small traders are running out of money.

“We cannot go on like this. To revive the economy, we need to control Covid-19. For people to survive, we need to help them. There are solutions,” he said.

 - Mkini