KUCHING, May 31: Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) was told to avoid conflicting announcements with that from the federal government and amongst State ministers which only create confusion among Sarawakians amidst alarming Covid-19 situation nationwide.
Special Assistant to Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen, Julian Tan, said this in response to the uncoordinated announcements on the standard operating procedures (SOPs) put in place for Sarawak to combat Covid-19 pandemic.
“Just hours after the SDMC announced that Sarawak will enforce Movement Control Order (MCO 3.0) from May 29 until June 11, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that there would be a ‘total lockdown’ nationwide from June 1 to 14.
“To further complicate matters, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah held a joint press conference yesterday and announced enforcement of the SOPs throughout the lockdown. Ismail Sabri repeatedly stated that the SOP for the total lockdown is applicable to all states throughout the country and no state is exempted [from it].
“Such uncoordinated effort is uncalled for, yet instead of clarifying the confusion, what Sarawakians bumped into are State ministers each giving contradicting statements regarding the announcement,” he said in a statement today.
Tan further called on State ministers to stop harping about State’s autonomy on Facebook as cheap publicity and fight it over in the Parliament instead.
“Autonomy is meant for the State to make better decisions and not create more confusion in an emergency. Autonomy is a double-edged sword that needs to be helmed by solid and competent leadership; indecisiveness will only make it cut the other way,” he added.
He also lashed out at SDMC for the latter’s slow decision-making and indecisiveness, stating that it “does not need more than 24 hours to make a decision in a crisis like this.”
“W need total ‘circuit breaker’ to pre-empt escalating infections,” he claimed.
Apart from that, he urged SDMC to improve contact tracing and ramp up mass testing to detect more positive cases quickly in the State.
He also urged the State government to be transparent and lay down concrete plans on how to ramp up the current vaccination from the average 6,490 to 45,000 jabs daily starting June in order to win over the Covid-19 pandemic. — DayakDaily
