LETTER | One common rule – the key success factor to combat Covid-19

LETTER | Prior to the Sheraton Move, the government managed to keep the number of Covid-19 cases low by having a focus and integrated multiagency action. 

The Sheraton Move led to government agencies lapses as the whole country and the government servants were fixated on political development. Chat groups involving many senior government servants were busy chatting about the move. 

The statistical trend does not lie, and the primary underlying cause of the outbreak was related to political power-grabbing.

The shakedown of Sabah was engineered at the federal level. The very week Musa Aman gained his freedom and his monies on June 8, the shakedown on Warisan led the government in Sabah took place. 

Scores of ministers, deputy ministers, and political troopers started to move into Sabah. By end of July, the Sabah government collapsed. 

From then onwards, the lack of will power to manage the Covid-19 spread in the interest of power grab led to the current spike of cases. Both the Sheraton Move and Sabah Move are due to the politicians’ hunger for power.

Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob reminded the people not to take it easy (alpa) and explained why the quarantine policy is not applied to Sabah. 

First, I think he needs to remind his fellow ministers not to take it easy. The case of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri proves a point on how the minister has taken it easy. I don’t understand why he needs to make all this travel including travel to Sabah and cannot use video conferencing for meetings.

Ismail Sabri's argument on why the 14-day quarantine is not applied to people returning from Sabah is flawed. We should not focus on politics. The policy must be disease prevention centric. 

Because of the high number of cases there, it should have been applied. It is the same policy that we applied at the district or other states in Malaysia. The reality is he is trying to justify something that does not hold water. 

Didn’t we restrict interstate travel in the early days of Covid-19 attacking Malaysia? Recently the Sarawak government banned all travellers into and from Sabah. 

The reality is the quarantine was not in place because it is to allow politicians to move freely. Today we have seen the implications of that flawed policy. It is now draining our healthcare resources and would potentially lead to further economic issues in Malaysia.

What is clear is that to combat Covid-19, a common rule is applied to all Malaysians – from the royalty, ministers, politicians, and ordinary citizens. 

There are no exceptions. Do the government servants from the various ministries have the spine to stand up to do the right thing to protect the people and the economy? 

Isn’t there enough evidence that the Covid-19 problems are due to politicians and their power-grabbing? 

Government servants must stand up and do the right thing. Enough is enough.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.