KUCHING, March 21: Parti Bumi Kenyalang felt the federal government lacked proper strategy and inefficient in tackling the spread of Covid-19.
Its president Voon Lee Shan believed that Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had failed to tackle the conoravirus outbreak in the country, when he announced the Movement Control Order (MCO).
He also deemed Muhyiddin’s plea for government departments to help each other in the fight against Covid-19 as lack of planning and coordination, especially between the armed forces and the police.
“Even the the King himself, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, went the ground to lead the war against the coronavirus.
“This shows how inefficient our present government is if the King has to lead the coronovirus war and there is no reason for the prime minister, senior ministers, chief ministers and their cabinet ministers not present on the ground to help frontliners and law enforcement officers in their work,” he said in a statement.
Voon opined that the police should not surrender the “peacetime war” to the armed forces.
“The Home Minister should be mindful that he is not empowered to deploy the army for internal security purposes because there is no war.
“There should be no deployment for internal security without sanction from the chief of defence, because this war is not against a foreign invasion but an invasion by a deadly virus,” he continued.
Voon said military personnel should only be used to do civic work like sending medical supplies to the rural areas and to start making makeshift hospitals to anticipate the increase of people affected by the coronavirus.
“Military doctors and paramedics should be utilised to help fight this deadly virus as it is a known fact that the doctors and medical staffs at the moment are unable to cope with the stress,” he added. — DayakDaily
