WITH many livid as many some sectors were given exemption to operate during the total lockdown, a former minister said the situation is creating massive confusion among the public.
“How do you reconcile this? While Putrajaya announced a total lockdown, Sarawak decided against it and allowed much its business sectors to operate.
“In Sabah, law firms are exempted from closure but we are supposed to work under minimum capacity. In the last two days, the state government made many U-turns, which I believe confused Putrajaya as well,” former International Trade and Industries Minister Datuk Darell Leiking told FocusM.
Three days ago, former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak criticised the Government for providing exemptions for many economic sectors during the total lockdown, particularly those in the electric and electrical (E&E) goods.
“Why can’t you have some guts just for 14 days? Too many factories given exemptions during the lockdown.
“The E&E factories, which employs about 600,000 workers, are allowed to operate. If you allow them to continue, other direct and indirect suppliers such as transportation providers and ports will also have to be allowed to operate on grounds to ‘preserve global economic supply chain’.
“But who is going to preserve national interest and the people’s economic interest, the ones who have been calling for a total lockdown to flatten the COVID-19 curve, which is at a critical level now?” he queried then.
The public also took to Twitter and vented out their frustration on the International Trade and Industries Ministry (Miti), with Najib’s rival Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad also calling it a “partial lockdown”.
Allow states to decide on exemptions
Yesterday, Free Malaysia Today reported that Cabinet Ministers exchanged verbal tirade against each other over Miti’s decision to exempt over 95,000 business from lockdown closures, with Senior Minister (Security) Datuk Seri Ismail Yaakob tweeted a cryptic message saying, “I have closed the front door but…”.
Touching on the matter, Leiking said that his successor, Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali should have decentralised decision making and allowed Miti’s state chapters to decide on which sectors to operate or otherwise.
Miti agencies at the state level, he noted, would know better on which industries needed to be given exemptions to operate, based on the needs of the respective states.
“Putrajaya won’t have much information on what is important for its respective states. Besides, I’m certain the officers at Miti were overwhelmed by the sheer number of applications, not knowing what to approve or not,” he opined.
Leiking urged the Federal Government to emulate Sarawak’s example, as the latter made the decision not to impose total lockdown based on the need of the state.
However, the Penampang MP acknowledged that it was a tricky situation for everyone as not every leader is on the same page on how to balance lives and livelihoods.
With that said, Leiking said it would be difficult for the Government to preach to the public on the importance of adhering to COVID-19 standard operating procedure (SOP), when they allowed over 95,000 businesses to operate as usual.
“When you allow non-essential business to operate, how do you explain that to a cyclist who gets compounded for not complying to SOP? So much inconsistency happening here and there.
“These are the areas Azmin should look into and resolve as soon as possible,” he remarked. – June 3, 2021.
