FORMER Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak lashed out at his successor for planning to establish a Reciprocal Green Lane/Travel Corridor Arrangement (RGL/TCA) travel bubble with Indonesia.
“Can Indonesia (with 12,156 new cases, 191 deaths and 176,433 active cases yesterday) be categorised as a nation that has managed to contain COVID-19 effectively?
“What guarantees do we have that its mutated COVID-19 strain will not enter Malaysia, via the travel bubble, as Indonesia was the place of origin of the strain which triggered our nation’s third wave infections?” he asked, in a Facebook post.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said yesterday that the travel bubble initiative was one of its tourism and culture recovery plans formulated last July, in a move to revitalise the sector.
She also thanked Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin for securing the deal with Indonesia, during his two-day visit to the nation, which ended on Friday.
One rule for locals, another for foreign tourists?
“The ministry has held discussions with the Health Ministry; Home Ministry and Foreign Affairs Ministry to explore opportunities by creating travel bubbles with countries such as Brunei, Singapore and Thailand, and other Asean and Asia Pacific countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which have been identified as safe by the World Health Organization (WHO),” Nancy was reported saying.
Urging caution, Najib said that Indonesia’s Eijikman Molecular Biology Authority Board chief Amin Soebandrio had warned that the mutated COVID-19 strain, named D614G, was 10 times more infectious than the original strain.
Touching on travel bubbles, the Pekan MP said such initiative was only allowed with nations which have successfully contained the pandemic, as stated by the Government itself last year.
“Singapore had suspended the travel bubble initiative with Malaysia as cases started to spike in our country. Brunei had also rejected our request for the same reason,” Najib stated.
He added: “Our people are barred from interstate travels but the Government is going to allow tourists to move around here freely?
“I agree if we have travel bubbles with nation’s that have low infection cases but I doubt they will entertain us due to the spike of COVID-19 cases in our country.” – Feb 7, 2021.
