He came in at an extraordinary time, only welcome by a new pandemic that by now has ravaged the world at such a speed, including Malaysia. The last time the world saw such a phenomenon was one hundred years ago when Spanish Influenza infected 500 mil. people and killed between 20 mil. and 50 mil. of them. Then, Malaysia was not affected – in fact the nation was not even born yet.
But today, with global flight connectivity, our country is not spared. The only blessing is that it could have been worse for us if not for the wisdom in the way the PM Muhyddin Yassin’s Government has been handling it. It has never been easy for a newly patched up government, and a ‘backdoor’ one (as his political enemies like to say), when it suddenly had to face a global and national calamity of unprecedented proportion.
Yet, he was unfazed by all the negative comments and condemnations by his detractors. He quietly assembled his new team to tackle the primary issues confronting the country. The National Security Council was immediately filled up with new and effective members; the Economic Action Council was reconstituted as a slimmer outfit to replace the Council of Eminent Persons with balanced representation from the government and industry and; even the Majlis Kemakmuran Bumiputera was newly constituted in response to requests from Bumiputera business circles. Needless to say all the councils are chaired personally by the Prime Minister himself with full focus and selfless determination, from a man not at the top of his health, who had just recovered from cancer less than a year earlier.
Not many people knew how the new Perikatan National Government top machinery worked. The recent special interview of his one year in office threw some light on this. To carry out such a huge and delicate task immediately at hand, the top two machinery, the National Security Council and the Economic Action Council and their various subcommittees had to meet daily undertaking engagements with all the stakeholders, namely the various goverment Ministries, Government agencies, chambers of commerce and business associations that represent the private sector as well as experts in medical and economic fields The objective is to fine tune the delicate balance between life and livelihood of the people, meaning to minimise deaths due to the pandemic and sustain ability of the people, particularly the B40 group, to put food on the table for their families.
I gathered from close contacts that The National Security Council and the Economic Action Council met once a week in the past one year, almost without fail, with each meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin himself, an unusual character at that. One may expect a Prime Minister being a towering figure would dominate all discussions and like to hear only pleasant stories coming to his ears. Instead, he is a humble person who is willing to listen to what everyone had to say. He is fully alert all the time and able to spot mistakes in official data as reported in those meetings. Quite often agencies had to refine their reports or survey data for greater accuracy.
All the above focus, though involving tedious readings and attentions to volumes of briefing materials, are absolutely necessary to tackle the bull by the horns. The end results are clear, the COVID-19 pandemic is well tamed with the various MCOs, SOPs and an assortment of acronyms of field measures which even confuse the most notable members of the defunct Council of Eminent Persons, Tun Daim Zainuddin, as reported in the media recently. Tun Daim may be right about it, but the more computer savvy younger generation may have no problem with acronyms, though perhaps it would have been better and clearer if MCO acronyms correspond with the colour codes of COVID-19 areas.
More important though, the front liners most often know what they are doing. There were of course cases of confusions in treating passengers of incoming international flights or how to handle students who already arrive at campuses when dates of resumptions of study suddenly changed, and construction worksites and oil palm plantations raided by the government agencies, even after the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister announced relaxation measure.
The public also often get confused when they were differently treated as they crossed the borders of different PKP areas. Well on the bright side, these are the inevitable minor inconveniences the public had to endure though may have involved tense exchanges between the public and front liners at the local levels.
The government public communication apparatus obviously had some drawbacks, with some agencies unable to keep abreast due the speed at which cases unfold. Hence, some confusion on the ground. But mostly the front liners know the prime reasons behind the different SOP treatment in different areas. As the Prime Minister said, surveys were conducted very regularly, in fact in a way never done before. As a result, SOPs and measures could be tailored to different areas based on daily official data or survey results which are updated regularly. Such dedication of the entire team enabled the government to contain the spread of the pandemic in all the three phases so far and; this was done without prolonged full lockdown in the country. Most of the time the economy is allowed to open though with some restrictions in different areas depending on the severity of the the new cases.
As a matter of record Malaysia has just over 300,000 COVID-19 cases to-date with 1,153 deaths, a moderate case compared to other countries. The daily cases have also subsided to around 2,000 compared with over 5,000 a week ago.
The economy dropped by 5.6% in 2020, by any standard a reasonable achievement among ASEAN countries, given the existing global economic scenario.
Lessening the impact of the pandemic on the economy had not been easy. It was not the normal scenario of attracting foreign or domestic investment, since the the sources of such investment are becoming more scarce, and get worse during the pandemic. Few investors wanted to invest when facing the mounting economic risks caused by the pandemic. In an environment when existing business had to face the the spectre of closing down, most did’t have enough money to continue operating. Many faced business collapse with little possibility of revival after the pandemic is over.
Obviously after consultations with the private sector through engagements with the Business Chambers throughout the country, Tan Sri Muhyddin Government decided to take a rather radical approach. The Economic Stimulus Package was increased exponentially to over RM300 bil. from the original RM 20 bil. under Pakatan Harapan Government. This was a daring but necessary move in spite of the poor fianancial health of the Malaysian Government.
The package in the form of verious initiatives like the Wage Subsidy Scheme, Rental Subsidy, Easy Credit Schemes for the the SME and Micro Sectors down to the PERIHATIN initiatives and EPF withdrawals, literally put money into the pockets of the people, especially the poorest 40% of them, the so called B40. This helped to stabilise spending power of the people during the crisis time. Otherwise, there would have been millions of people going hungry and lost their jobs.
In spite of the above, there are large sections of small business and those in the informal sector, particularly Bumiputera traders who missed getting the assistance. They were missed out for various reasons, from lack of business records and documentation, such as registration with SOCSO, EPF, LEMBAGA HASIL or even licences from local authorities. Surveys conducted indicated that these category of traders or businesses have been severely affected during the Pandemic.
The government need to take heed of this issue and rectify it in the coming months by addressing problems faced, in particular by the Bumiputera SMEs and Micro sector. Needless to say, the business community need some of those assistance this year, when the economic hardship is still expected to persist. END
DAH IKHWAN
