KUCHING, Mar 25: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan has urged rich politicians and billionaires to contribute their wealth to save the country which is currently facing Covid-19 crisis and help people in this trying times.
“If one per cent of your wealth is taken out to save this country from its debts and to help the poor in trying times, we can survive.
“The country has about 100 billionaires at the moment and nearly half of them are politicians or are related to the politicians,” he claimed in a statement today.
Voon said the rich politicians should contribute their wealth to save this country from disasters to avoid punishment by the people as he observed many were already not very happy with the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) government which was not elected, but, “formed through the backdoor”.
With the Covid-19 pandemic hinting at inflation and looming financial crisis, he also raised concerns of corruption, abuse of power, mismanagement of economies and rampant crimes could lead to opportunities for military intervention and takeover of civilian governments experienced in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
“During this lockdown caused by Covid-19, I had occupied my time by reading something about corruption and abuse of power in the third world countries.
“I found out that corruptions and abuse of powers could easily give excuses to military coup to take over civilian rule,” he said.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, he highlighted that many countries will suffer as their economy will be affected not to mention high unemployment and food scarcity.
“Famine may follow and many will die of starvation. People may have no money to purchase food and daily essentials. People will blame the politicians for corruption, abuse of power and mismanagement of the economies.
“We have seen coup d’etat in African countries in the past when the army felt it should takeover civilian rule to prevent further corruption and mismanagement of the economy.
“In our region, we have seen coup d’etat or serious public unrest taking place in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand leading to army takeover of civilian rule. They also led to change of civilian governments backed by the army,” he explained.
Voon pointed out that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government was replaced by Pakatan Harapan (PH) government because the people wanted the BN government removed over allegations of massive corruption, abuse of power and mismanagement of the economy.
“The fire is there and if not controlled or doused off, this can burn a forest,” he concluded.—DayakDaily
