Kit Siang: PSC should probe what went wrong with Covid-19 response

Veteran opposition MP Lim Kit Siang has urged the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Health, Science and Innovation to investigate what went wrong with Malaysia's Covid-19 response.

Lim said the equivalent committee in UK's Parliament had done so, recently declaring that the UK's Covid-19 response was the worst public health failure ever.

"It is time Malaysian select committees conducted public hearings on the Covid-19 lessons to be learnt in Malaysia, if we are to be prepared for the next pandemic, which medical experts have warned could come soon and be deadlier.

"Furthermore, why Malaysia became one of the worst-performing nations in the Covid-19 pandemic, even worse than Indonesia, a country more than eight times the population of Malaysia?" said Lim.

He noted that in absolute terms, Indonesia's Covid-19 new case count and deaths have exceeded that of Malaysia for most of the past week.

Important role

In view of Parliament having increased the number of PSC members from seven to nine, Lim urged the government to complete the appointment of all PSCs before the Dewan Rakyat reconvenes on Oct 25.

This, he said, was necessary for the various PSCs to conduct Covid-19 pandemic-related investigations. 

The UK House of Commons, said Lim, so far has 57 reports related to the topic and more than 60 reports pending.

He said these reports covered topics such as the Covid-19 pandemic impact on prisons, justice, immigration, gendered economic impact and domestic abuse, among others.

"Malaysia's parliamentary special select committees have a lot to catch up to play the important role of check-and-balance to the executive as intended by the Federal Constitution and the historic confidence-supply-reform (CSR) memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yakoob and the Pakatan Harapan leaders on Sept 13," said Lim. - Mkini